The California Coastal Commission voted unanimously Thursday to fine a Carlsbad homeowner $1.4 million and ordered him to remove a gate that blocks public access to the Buena Vista Lagoon and the beach just south of the Carlsbad border.
The locked gate is on Mountain View Drive at the beginning of a driveway to John Levy’s custom-built, two-story house beside the lagoon.
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Levy built the gate on land owned by the homeowners association of an adjacent bluff-top condominium complex. An easement approved by the Coastal Commission in 1983 requires the property to remain open for public access to the nearby beach and the lagoon, and to what later became Levy’s property.
Levy’s house is built on leveled fill material that was trucked to the lagoon’s edge in the 1970s from the creation of the Carlsbad mall now known as The Shoppes at Carlsbad.
The commission’s decision Thursday at a meeting in Redondo Beach came after years of back-and-forth between Levy and the Coastal Commission over a string of allegations related to public access, unpermitted construction, and habitat preservation requirements.
One commissioner noted that with today’s tighter coastal regulations it probably would be difficult, if not impossible, for someone to build a house in such an unusual location.
“This is a 29-year-old matter,” Levy told the commission over a Zoom connection from New Zealand, where he lives most of the year. “I am not blocking public access.”
He said, as he has before, that he can’t open the gate for the public because it’s not on his property. Commission staffers disagreed. Levy asked for a continuance for more time to address the issues, but the commission said the matter has gone on long enough.
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“There is a strong feeling that the gate needs to be opened almost immediately and eventually removed,” said Commissioner Caryl Hart of San Francisco. She said that unless the gate, its pillars, electrical system and other features are removed, access could be blocked again.
Levy’s house, which can’t be seen from the street, has a second gate to his property at the end of the long, paved driveway.
About halfway down the driveway, a dirt road branches off to the west along the lagoon to the ocean. Levy furnished Carlsbad lifeguards with the code for the gate, and they use it to patrol the northern mile of the shoreline that’s controlled by the city and not part of the state beach system.
Levy lived in the house for a while after it was built in 2000. Then he moved to New Zealand and offered it as a short-term rental that soon became a wedding venue called Levyland for a few years. The weddings were stopped because of complaints about noise, lighting and other violations.
Commission staffers alleged that Levy removed native plants and brush to create parking, covered the bare ground with wood chips, and added a pickleball court without a permit. Also, he installed a fence and a locked pedestrian gate on a trail on state Department of Fish and Wildlife land along the edge of the lagoon that the commission said should be open to the public.
“I had no idea my property was being used for unpermitted activities,” Levy said Thursday.
Increased public access along the lagoon is likely to compound existing problems with trespassing, homelessness and vandalism, he said.
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Levy said the lagoon trail “goes nowhere,” which struck a nerve with Commissioner Mike Wilson, who’s also on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors in Northern California.
“Sometimes nowhere is where you want to be,” Wilson said. “This is actually a highly valued access point.”
A short trail along the lagoon would benefit birdwatchers, hikers and anyone who wants a closer look at the wetlands, he said.
The commission staff had proposed two separate penalties for Levy. One was $1,071,562 for failing to open the main gate and that fine was to be forgiven if Levy opens it, which he was ordered to do.
The commission unanimously agreed to fine Levy with a different penalty, a total of $1,428,750 for a combination of other violations that include clearing vegetation for a parking lot, installing unpermitted fencing on state land, building the pickleball court and more.
Staffers said the recommended fines were lenient considering that the Coastal Act allows fines to be assessed daily for each individual violation, which in Levy’s case could have been tens of millions of dollars.