The Edge project applicants made a sinister attempt to rush their coastal permit applications to approval two days before the new, strict Santa Monica Mountains local coastal program went into effect (October 10, 2014). By continuing the hearing to 2015, thankfully, a unanimous Coastal Commission refused to let them get away with their shameless maneuvering.
The homeowners on narrow Sweetwater Mesa Road, represented by Angel Law through Serra Canyon Property Owners Assn., requested the continuance because they were not given notice of the hearing. Sweetwater Mesa Road is the access road for the project, which includes mass grading. The construction phase will have significant adverse impacts on the homeowners, and so they are clearly “interested persons” entitled to hearing notice under applicable coastal regulations, not to mention fundamental notions of fair play and Coastal Act policy calling for “the widest opportunity for public participation.”
When permit applicants give Coastal Commission staff an incomplete notification list of persons and properties adversely impacted by their project, they shut interested persons out of the hearing and deprive them of the opportunity to share relevant information, points of view and objections with the Commission. Few developers stoop to that level.
Karma Boomerang! It was a beautiful day in Newport Beach.