Douda v. California Coastal Commission

Opinion

ASHMANN-GERST, J.

This appeal raises two challenges to the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission (Commission) to regulate, namely: (1) Does the Commission have the power to unilaterally designate environmentally sensitive habitat areas and thereby prevent development? (2) Does the Commission have the power to prevent development on land four and a half miles from the ocean on the grounds that the development will impair scenic and visual resources of a coastal zone that extends five miles inland into the Santa Monica Mountains? Below, the Commission denied the application…