We need your help to protect the public shoreline in Cannon Beach!
A homeowner in Cannon Beach has appealed the Planning Commission’s denial of their application for riprap on the public beach. Please lend your voice to urge the City Council to uphold the Planning Commission’s decision!
The next appeal hearing is Wednesday, March 5th at 6:00pm.
Before the Meeting: Email the Council asking they uphold their Planning Commission’s denial. Send your email (earlier the better) to: cityhall@ci.cannon-beach.or.us and bcc khazard@surfrider.org
At the Meeting: Attend the March 5th meeting in person or virtually. Individual speakers will have two minutes.
For some quick and dirty talking points, click here. The most important thing is that you speak from the heart to why you care about the beach! You don’t have to live in Cannon Beach to comment! The applicant and their friends certainly don’t.
Check out our previous comments to the Planning Commission and City Council which detail why this application should be denied.
To review all the documents, visit the City website. All the pdf files under “Meeting Information” are for this hearing.
Read on for some background on our journey to oppose this application for riprap, and context on how the system works.
How does riprap affect the beach?
This winter, Surfrider, along with our local partner organizations, have opposed several applications submitted by homeowners up and down the coast to install riprap at their oceanfront homes. Riprap, a form of shoreline armoring in which large boulders are placed in front of the home and onto the public beach, is problematic for many reasons. It leads to increased erosion of the beach in front of the structure and to neighboring properties, due to the reflection (rather than absorption) of the wave energy. Riprap destroys beach habitat and inhibits natural sediment transfer, starving our beaches of sand and, over time, drowning them. Eventually, these beaches become inaccessible.
Extensive riprap placed on the beach in Neskowin, OR. As you can see, waves come right up to the rocks, making this stretch impassible. Photo by Rena Olson.
Who regulates riprap?
The statewide land use law which regulates these applications is known as Goal 18. Essentially, properties that were developed after 1977 are not eligible to apply for shoreline armoring. Properties that were developed before 1977 are eligible to apply, but must meet several requirements. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) is the regulatory agency which manages the shoreline, and subsequently, these applications. Oregon has a tiered approach to erosion control, with “softer” nature-based solutions being required before moving into “hardened” structural approaches such as riprap. The applicant must prove that a softer approach won’t work on their property first, before riprap can be approved. They must meet other requirements as well, such as that “access to the beach is maintained” and “long term or recurring costs to the public are avoided.”
In Cannon Beach, shoreline armoring is considered a “Conditional Use” under the city code. Therefore, these applications first must be approved by the City before they go to OPRD for consideration. This means that the Cannon Beach Planning Commission is the first to review applications for riprap.
What happened?
Late last year, the Planning Commission held two hearings for one such application. Surfrider, along with other community groups and concerned citizens, turned out to oppose this riprap structure. After hearing testimony from both sides, the Planning Commission voted to deny the application. While this was a win, the fight was far from over.
As expected, the applicant appealed the denial. This meant that the application would next go to the Cannon Beach City Council to review. However, this is where things got sticky. The City Councillors were supposed to receive all of the materials that the Planning Commission had reviewed, including opposing testimony. However, all opposing testimony was somehow excluded from this packet, meaning that for over a month, the City Councillors only saw the applicants materials. They had over a month to consider all of the pro-armoring arguments, and could only assume there was no one opposing riprap. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Now, we must fight to make our voices heard! Private beachfront homeowners do not have the right to solely determine what the public beach looks like and whether or not it exists in the future.
At the appeal hearing held February 11, this gross omission was brought to light. Below, see a message from Dianna Turner, leader of Friends of the Dunes at Cannon Beach, a group fighting against riprap locally in Cannon Beach:
Dear Friends,
Tuesday night's appeal hearing for the Siegels’s riprap permit application was deeply concerning. The City website's meeting files excluded all testimony opposing the application, including over 80 pages from the Friends of the Dunes. From January 7th to February 11th, the Council only saw the Siegel’s and City staff's materials.
This omission is unacceptable.
At the meeting, I requested a reschedule to allow the Council to review all materials. The Siegel's and City’s attorneys instead directed the Council to take oral testimony that night, which was accepted by the Council despite Councilor Kerr's objections.
This decision further prejudiced the Council towards the Siegels.
The Siegel's testimony, along with that of their attorney, geotechnical engineer, realtor, excavator, friends, and neighbors, presented the same arguments as before. Some testimony repeated misleading claims about riprap's effectiveness. Two speakers also made unprovoked hostile outbursts towards Councilor Kerr, which were not addressed by City staff or Council members. [Check out a full blow-by-blow testimony recap here]
Thank you, Councilor Kerr, for your resilience in the face of this disrespect.
This is a big blow to us. The only way to truly recover this lost ground is to email the Councilors and speak at the meeting. They’ve heard an awful lot from the other side, now they must hear from us!
OUR NEXT STEPS IN THIS BATTLE
The next appeal hearing is Wednesday, March 5th at 6:00pm.
Before the Meeting: Email the Council asking they uphold their Planning Commission’s denial. Our codes require the Siegels prove that other, less harmful erosion control measures could not work. They haven’t even come close! Send your email (earlier the better) to: cityhall@ci.cannon-beach.or.us & friendsofdunes@gmail.com
At the Meeting: Attend in person and speak. Attend by Zoom and raise your “hand” to speak. Individual speakers will have two minutes. Group representatives will have ten minutes.
To review documents, here’s the link to the March 5th meeting files on the City’s website. All the pdf files under “Agenda Packets” are for this hearing.
If you have any questions about rip rap, this application, or providing testimony, please email me at friendsofdunes@gmail.com!
Though we've been severely undercut by City staff omitting our testimony, this is still a battle we can win by showing up and bringing it! Let's do this for the ocean shore, for our community and for Lisa Kerr who took hits for this community on Tuesday!