Planning Commission approves permanent erosion-control systems at Sea Ledge Lane and Cliff Drive

The Santa Barbara City Planning Commission voted Aug. 21 to approve a coastal development permit allowing permanent retention of erosion-control systems installed after bluff failures at Sea Ledge Lane and Cliff Drive.

The decision authorizes high-tensile steel mesh anchored by soil nails, subsequent hydroseeding and road repair, and installation of a cable guardrail along the roadway. Commissioners added conditions requiring extended biological monitoring, a pre-design-review evaluation of nonnative plantings at the base of the slope, and limits on mechanized equipment absent director approval.

Project planner Barbara Buckhart told commissioners the site sits in the appealable coastal zone within the Arroyo Burro component of the Local Coastal Program and includes four lots on the coastal bluff face. She said the installed system uses high-tensile steel mesh pinned with soil nails “25 feet long and embed back into the bedrock,” followed by hydroseeding of a seed mix chosen to restore native species including the special-status cliff aster. Buckhart said staff had approved two emergency coastal development permits (October 2023 and April 2024) to stabilize separate slide events and that three subsequent biological monitoring reports show the repair areas remain intact and native plants are becoming…