Pismo Beach's planning process isn't up to snuff 

"The whole thing reeks of corruption."

That sounds rich coming from disgraced former Pismo Beach City Council member/California Coastal Commissioner Erik Howell, who's had his fair share of corruption allegations lobbed against him along pay-to-play lines. He believed this so much of the city that he once helped govern that he filed an appeal of a recently approved development permit to the state body he used to vote on.

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The scenario is complicated—as per usual. Suffice to say: A Pismo Beach City Council member's stepfather's coastal development permit to turn a small house into a bigger house hinged on changes the city needed to make to its local coastal program. They approved both the needed amendment and the development permit at the same meeting.

It sounds fishy. Fishy, fishy, fishy.

In fact, that's not the way the city was supposed to do things, and Coastal Commission staffers told Pismo as much. Four days prior to the April meeting where those two little approvals happened, Coastal Program Analyst Katie Butler sent the city a letter clarifying that the city should wait to consider the development permit until after the Coastal Commission certified the amendment.

We know this now. In October, when the city officially ratified the permit (Yes, two approvals. So complicated!), New Times reached out to the city about April's concurrent approvals. Pismo Beach Public Information Officer Jorge Garcia responded with a statement saying that the city worked with the Coastal Commission throughout the process to ensure "we were following their process for review and submittal."

Well, it sure doesn't sound like it, Garcia!

"It is true that the project took a circuitous route through the city's process, and it is true that it was initially improperly approved by the City Council since it relied on an ... amendment being approved by the commission that modified certain development standards in the neighborhood," Analyst Sarah MacGregor said at the Dec. 16 appeal hearing.

Even Pismo Beach Community Development Director Matt Downing admitted that the process "wasn't great."

However, that's where things ended. The Coastal Commission, which seems so eager to jump in on myriad development projects to stop them in their tracks, did nothing to punish Pismo Beach or the developer. Which makes no sense.

In February, the Coastal Commission appealed a Pismo Beach Planning Commission decision to allow a home on the bluffs to elongate a seawall for protection. The commission insisted that approving the seawall didn't mesh with the city's local coastal plan, but really it seemed like the state agency believes that homes built along the coast should just melt back into the sea.

In April, when all of the fishy shit was circling through Pismo's planning process, the Coastal Commission took it upon itself to appeal city approval of a beach house's development permit. Pismo Beach approved the construction permit after the fact—after it was already done—and I get that the whole beg-for-forgiveness-thing is also sketchy. But that wasn't the problem.

The commission didn't like the beach house because it didn't comply with, you guessed it, the local coastal plan. And also because it ruined the public's view of the beach and its surroundings. Very important stuff here!

Apparently, all the city needed to do was approve a concurrent coastal plan amendment with that permit approval and everything would have been a-OK. Right?

Now, we've got Howell on a high horse about corruption, which I really don't like, and he's back in the spotlight, which he really does like. All because Pismo Beach can't seem to get its planning and permitting done correctly and the Coastal Commission only really seems to care about projects when it comes to public access to the coastline.

So who's going to hold the city accountable? No one but Howell and his co-appellant Tarren Collins, apparently.

Howell told New Times that local governing bodies must issue permits based on the local coastal program as it's written, and not "how the developer wishes they were written."

Even the city admitted that the process was janky.

Collins said she was disappointed that with city and commission staff admitting that they didn't follow the legal process properly, everyone overlooked the "obvious flaws."

"If this wasn't a City Council member's project, this would never have gotten this far," she said.

The council member in question—Scott Newton—claims that he has nothing to do with his stepfather's project and has recused himself from the decision-making process. He has responded to New Times' questions by accusing the paper of making up a story where there wasn't one and said that no other media outlet was reporting on this so why would we.

Gosh, where have I heard things like that before!

It certainly is nice to not be questioned or held accountable, but we're here to make sure the public sees the things they aren't always privy to. Things like a circuitous route through planning processes that results in a council member's family receiving a benefit, whether the city gets rapped on the knuckles or not.

"We can only hope the courts will do the right thing, given the failures of the city," Collins said. Δ

The Shredder is holding out hope for a dramatic court fight. Send notes to [email protected].