Photo by Cat Cutillo, Half Moon Bay Review
An overflow crowd attended the Midcoast Council meeting December 9 to comment on a proposed development on Moss Beach's Vallemar Bluffs. Read this Half Moon Bay Review story (November 4) about the plan to build six houses on the bluffs. If you have ever walked along the trail there or sat on the bench gazing out at the ocean, you should be very angry about this proposal, which includes cutting down 40 cypress trees. The bluffs belong to the public, not private homeowners. STOP PAVING PARADISE!
MCC is going to discuss this December 9. Click link for details:
http://www.midcoastcommunitycouncil.org/
Posted by: Laurie Soca | November 10, 2015 at 04:52 PM
This again? There should be lots of material in the county files somewhere from the last time this went around. Is the McCracken/Byers law bunch involved again?
In the documents posted here, I see nothing about the blufftop strip next to the ocean. This is part of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve and not private property. Don't expect anyone in the county parks department to defend the well-established coastal trail and the rare plant species there. Also, there should be no runoff from the private property that would increase bluff erosion or saturation of bluff material.
These bluffs are not exactly like Pacifica's in the apartment stretch in that there is a rocky buttress at their base that stops typical wave action and small storms from affecting the softer bluff material. But, yes, when the bluffs become saturated after lots of rain or due to runoff from above, that becomes perhaps the biggest factor in chunks of the bluff edge failing. In this spot, the rare plant is on the bluff edge in one fairly small location.
We are going to see other places resurrected in Moss Beach and Montara due to the loosening of water permits with the new well and tanks. This is undoubtedly a factor in the reawakening of action on the old Navy property.
Posted by: Carl May | November 09, 2015 at 11:11 AM
Contact the Coastal Commission and relay your specific concerns.
This project is all but identical to houses and apartments in Pacifica that have fallen into the sea -- or are about to fall into the sea due to erosion.
The short of it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw6sDulj7GA
The long of it:
https://baynature.org/articles/down-to-the-sea-again/
The 1950s greed of it: Before they were built, one woman warned that coastal erosion would force apartments on Pacifica's eroding coast into the sea; years later, they did!
Posted by: Jay Bird | November 09, 2015 at 04:30 AM