San Diego Union Tribune covers PLF’s Lynch case

Earlier this week the San Diego Union Tribune covered our Lynch v. California Coastal Commission case which challenges the Coastal Commission‘s policy of phasing out private beach stairways and making it very difficult to build protective seawalls.  As previously noted, PLF represents Encinitas bluff-top residents Barbara Lynch and Thomas Frick.  They need to build a new seawall and stairway that were destroyed by storms in 2010, but the Coastal Commission has made that all but impossible.  It denied them outright a permit to re-build the stairway, and conditioned their right to build the seawall on a series of onerous conditions.  Ms. Lynch and Mr. Frick challenged those conditions, and the stairway denial, in court and won.  Now, the Coastal Commission is appealing that decision; it filed its opening brief in the appellate court last week, and PLF’s brief is due in court on February 20.  As the Tribune article notes, “Frick and Lynch said . . . they couldn’t have afforded to continue their case without the help of the foundation, which agreed to represent them for free.”  Indeed, thanks to the generosity of our donors, PLF is able to help these property owners continue their fight to try and establish precedent in the court of appeal that the Commission cannot simply outlaw seawalls because it doesn’t like them.  Property owners have the right to protect their homes from erosion and storm damage, whether the Commission likes it or not.