Out of Control

Richard and Helen Stokes bought four 25′ by 70′ pine-tree-covered lots in the Lodge Hill area of Cambria, California during the sluggish real-estate market of the late 1960s. The Stokeses planned to retire to Cambria and build and live on two of the lots while keeping the other two as an investment. They visited the lots over the years;, caring for the young pines and surveying possible home sites.

In 1981, when the Stokeses were ready to build, they had to apply to the staterun South Central Coast Regional Commission for a building permit, since their property was in the state-defined “Coastal Zone” and within a “sensitive habitat reserve.” The permit was granted. but it was immediately appealed on the “sensitive habitat” grounds by a group called Coast Watch, located in Santa Barbara, 120 miles to the south. Though the protesting group had never seen the lots in question, the permit was successfully appealed to a branch of the state Coastal Commission in San Diego, six hundred miles to the south, with the pines the couple had nurtured ultimately becoming the hinge in the case. They were forbidden to build on land they had paid property taxes on for nearly 15 years; their dreams of retirement in Cambria have been shattered.

JN

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Jeffery Nelligan

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Richard and Helen Stokes bought four 25′ by 70′ pine-tree-covered lots in the Lodge Hill area of Cambria, California during the sluggish real-estate market of the late 1960s. The Stokeses planned to retire to Cambria and build and live on two of the lots while keeping the other two as an investment. They visited the lots over the years;, caring for the young pines and surveying possible home sites.

In 1981, when the Stokeses were ready to build, they had to apply to the staterun South Central Coast Regional Commission for a building permit, since their property was in the state-defined “Coastal Zone” and within a “sensitive habitat reserve.” The permit was granted. but it was immediately appealed on the “sensitive habitat” grounds by a group called Coast Watch, located in Santa Barbara, 120 miles to the south. Though the protesting group had never seen the lots in question, the permit was successfully appealed to a branch of the state Coastal Commission in San Diego, six hundred miles to the south, with the pines the couple had nurtured ultimately becoming the hinge in the case. They were forbidden to build on land they had paid property taxes on for nearly 15 years; their dreams of retirement in Cambria have been shattered.