A Place in the Sun Will Be Hard to Find at Many Beaches on North County Coast

Spring is here, that time when beach enthusiasts come out of hibernation, hunt up their sandals, dust off their coolers and prepare to catch a few rays. But nature and man have conspired to turn a trip to the beach into an exercise in frustration.

To no one’s surprise, time and tide have taken their toll along North County’s beaches again this winter. Also unsurprisingly, the bureaucratic and barbed-wire barricades thrown up by state and local agencies remain in place, blocking public access to many other beaches.

To listen to governmental officials charged with preserving, protecting and providing access to California’s sandy tourist attraction, it’s nobody’s fault or everybody’s fault that half a dozen public beaches along San Diego’s North County coast won’t be public this summer because the public can’t get to them.

At Cardiff and Moonlight state beaches, bulldozers are ripping up parking lots. Oceanside’s strand looks like a war zone. Nearly half of Carlsbad’s three-mile oceanfront is imprisoned behind detour signs because of bridge construction. And several bluff-to-beach stairways scheduled to be in place for this summer’s crowds are still on county drafting boards.

Bill Fait, regional manager of the state’s beach parks, can optimistically predict that nature will do its magic act again this year. “The sand will be back,” he said.

But he is much less confident that the contractors and politicians will meet their deadlines to open up the beaches by the time the human tide of beachgoers reaches its crest.

One coastal park, Leucadia State Beach, a strip of sand and cobble nearly a mile and a half long below imposing 80-foot ocean bluffs, will remain inaccessible again this summer, Fait admits. From two blufftop viewpoints, the strand below is visible and inviting. But there’s no way to get there legally.

At the southern end of the park, a dirt trail down the bluffs has been shored up with railroad ties at the top and completed by a band of unauthorized residents at the bottom. It’s not an official access, Fait said. But state parks officials look the other way when beachgoers trek down the makeshift trail because it’s the only access route there is.

At the northern end of the Leucadia bluffs, a state-built staircase leading to the beach from an empty state-built parking lot has been barricaded and posted with warnings. Fait said the Grandview Street stairs fell victim to a collapse of the sandstone cliff face in 1982, and probably never will be repaired and reopened. Why? State parks policy restricts repair of any stairway or other improvement that is not expected to withstand the wind, tides and weather. The Grandview stairs can’t meet that test.

Fait explained: “It’s not just the money involved, it’s the liability the state would face if another cliff failure occurs. There have been two at the Grandview stairs, and a state geologist has determined that the bluff is unstable at that location.” In other words, nature has won.

State Assemblyman Bob Frazee, (R-Carlsbad), spurred by protests from his Leucadia constituents, has appealed the death sentence handed down for the Grandview access. Frazee aide Rich Ledford said that negotiations are going on to allow fund transfers between the state Department of Parks and Recreation and the state Coastal Conservancy that would allow the conservancy to take over the Grandview stairway restoration project. The conservancy has no restrictions limiting its projects to those assured of lasting more than five to seven years.

Ledford explained that the state parks’ policy “makes a lot of sense on the surface. It’s aimed at not throwing good money after bad by repairing or replacing things that aren’t going to last.” But, he said, the policy is too rigid. A decision on whether to rebuild the stairway should be based on its value to the public as well as on the stability of the bluffs. If the Grandview stairway is not rebuilt, the public will lose invaluable assets--62 blufftop parking spaces made useless because the access point is closed-- and the stretch of ocean beach below is accessible only if the stairway is reopened, Ledford explained.

Coastal Conservancy director Peter Grinnell admits that opening up public beach to the public is not as simple to achieve as it might appear. His state agency has the somewhat conflicting task of protecting the public coastline and sensitive coastal wetlands while opening these areas up for public enjoyment by planning and funding projects such as beach access, view points and trails. There’s not much sense in acquiring and preserving coastal areas as wildlife refuges and nature preserves, then allowing beachgoers or developers to intrude on them and destroy their purpose, he pointed out.

A delicate balance of public access and nature preserve will be achieved in Batiquitos Lagoon at Carlsbad’s southern boundary, Grinnell said. The lagoon enhancement plan--to be financed by a Texas pipeline company in mitigation for environmental damage created in building an oil tanker terminal and storage in the Port of Los Angeles--includes public hiking trails, miniparks and nature viewpoints for human visitors and wildlife resting and nesting preserves for the feathered drop-ins. But the price tag for the project, including dredging the coastal lagoon and restoring its natural beauty, is $15 million, he noted, an amount which precludes consideration of similar projects until another windfall donation from private industry comes along.

Another multimillion-dollar project that Grinnell considers North County’s “biggest success story” is taking shape along Oceanside’s Strand. A row of condominiums is rising along the city beach but condo developers’ dollars are helping to restore and beautify the beachfront, rebuild the storm-ravaged municipal pier and increase beach parking and access.

“It may not look like it now,” Grinnell said of the present jumble of construction materials, torn-up streets and barricaded streets and stairways, “but when the balloons go up and the ribbon is cut, it’s going to be outstanding.”

The Oceanside beach improvements, part of the city’s downtown redevelopment efforts, will total around $10 million and will be financed by a dozen state, federal and local agencies in addition to developer contributions and state Coastal Conservancy loans and grants, according to Maggie Gulati, city redevelopment director.

One expensive new wrinkle, a $300,000 turn-around being built at the foot of Sixth Street, is designed to solve the irritating problem of lugging cumbersome beach paraphernalia to the sand from a distant parking place. Beachfront parking will still be at a premium, Gulati admitted, but beachgoers now can use the turnout to drop off their kids and gear right on the beach. The six-figure cost for a simple cul-de-sac is occasioned because the turn-around must be protected by a massive concrete cowl from the ravages of winter storms and surf.

Unfortunately, the condominiums and the beach improvements won’t be finished until next year. This year you can’t “Tan Your Hide in Oceanside.”

County parks planners can only advise beachgoers to have patience while three access routes to county beach parks in Encinitas are stalled in bureaucratic traffic.

County officials shoulder part of the blame for not completing $375,000 in access construction and repairs at Sea Cliff, Seaside Gardens and D Street, but point a finger at the state Coastal Commission policy which restricts any construction work during the beach season. With tides and weather ruling out winter beach work and the Coastal Commission policies banning summer constructions, only two short “windows of opportunity” remain to construct the county projects, explained Noel Parr, county acting chief of park development. So far, three “windows” have opened and closed since the projects received Coastal Conservancy funding. Parr said that the department is preparing to seek bids on the repair of Seaside’s stone steps and D Street’s ruined ramps, with construction slated to start after Labor Day.

Gail Odom, Coastal Conservancy spokeswoman, said the state agency grant will expire July 31 but probably will be routinely renewed if county officials provide evidence that the projects are finally on the move.

The third county access project--construction of a new stairway to link Sea Cliff to the beach at Swami’s Point--has been stalled because county plans to rebuild the present stairway were rejected by the Coastal Conservancy. A sturdier, more expensive structure will be built on a more protected site to the north, on an easement across Self Realization Fellowship property.

Of all the beach access projects planned or under way along the North County coast, only the state’s parking lot improvements are scheduled to be finished this summer. However, when the lots at Cardiff and Moonlight beaches reopen on June 28, they will no longer be free. A $3-a-day fee will be imposed.