Coastal protections under pressure again as lawmakers eye fresh batch of housing bills

LAST YEAR, STATE lawmakers broke from tradition by not including an exception for the California coast in a major housing law.

That deliberate omission came despite opposition from the California Coastal Commission — the voter-created state agency tasked since 1976 with scrutinizing anything that gets built, demolished, dug, divvied up, fixed, tamped down or clear cut within the California Coastal Zone. A stretch of land that grazes the entirety of California’s 840-mile coast, the zone reaches inland from high tide, 1,000 feet at its narrowest and five miles at its thickest.