Winter storms damaged a seawall which protected a blufftop, oceanfront home. The owners, not surprisingly, wanted to rebuild the wall to protect their home. The Coastal Commission, as is its wont, saw this as an opportunity to extract some goodies from the owners. So it granted a limited-term permit to rebuild the wall, conditioned on the owners not repairing a stairway leading from the top of the bluff to the private beach:
Ultimately, the Commission approved a coastal development permit allowing seawall demolition and reconstruction, with the addition of midbluff geogrid protection below Lynch‟s home. The permit was subject to several conditions, three of which are at issue here. Special condition No. 1(a) prohibits reconstruction of the lower stairway. Special condition No. 2 provides that the seawall permit will expire in 20 years and prohibits future blufftop redevelopment from relying on the seawall as a source of geologic stability or
