The proposed resort and housing project on the Carpinteria Bluffs, Farm Preserve & Bungalows, would be a liability waiting to happen for both the permitting municipality and the developers because of climate change and earthquakes.

The project would include 41 affordable housing units, a 99-room “bungalow” retreat, a barn, farm stand, a two-acre farm, three acres of preserved farmland and 10½ acres of open space.

Putting aside the increased traffic; greenhouse gas emissions from construction and trucking; damage to wildlife, including the seal rookery below the bluffs; the desecration of Chumash lands; and the removal of 27 acres of vanishing open space contiguous with the Carpinteria Bluffs Nature Preserve, climate change, seal level rise, earthquakes and liability exposure should be the nails in the coffin for this project.

Sea Level Rise

Global sea level is rising at more than double the pace, reaching a new high in 2023.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in releasing its report on sea-level rise concluded that sea level, because of global warming, is rising at the fastest rate in 3,000 years and will have an impact on every location along the U.S. coastlines.

The NOAA’s prediction for the Central Coast includes coastal flooding and storm surges 10 times more than we are currently experiencing.

In the next decade, sea level rise along Carpinteria will cause landslides and more beach erosions. Highway 101 will be affected by storm flooding. Sandy beaches along the coastal bluffs would be lost from beach erosion.

Blufftop housing and development, which would include the Farm Preserve & Bungalows project, along with coastal neighborhoods, are threatened by a rising Pacific Ocean.

The predicted cumulative economic impacts to the cities of Carpinteria and Santa Barbara were as much as $4.1 billion.

Moreover, climate change storms, in the form of enormous cyclones, sent 40-foot waves to the Central Coast last month. The waves pushed the ocean onto the railroad tracks at Padaro Beach west of Carpinteria. Parking lots and coastal restaurants were flooded.

Earthquakes

The proposed blufftop project would be built in earthquake zones, both in the Pacific Ocean and on land.

The Santa Barbara Channel has had 36 earthquakes in the past 365 days, ranging in magnitude from 1.8 to 2.3.

In January 2023, Santa Barbara and Carpinteria experienced a 4.2 quake followed by a 3.5 aftershock.

Last week, there were two land-based earthquakes that hit Carpinteria, a magnitude 1.6 and a 1.7.

There is no way to ensure that these quakes will remain small, and not produce tsunamis threatening the proposed blufftop development.

Rather than considering whether to permit new coastal development, Carpinteria should be creating sea level-rise mitigations, including berms, floodwalls, relocating infrastructure and new flood-conscious building codes outlawing projects like the proposed Farm Preserve & Bungalows on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean.

Liability

Given that Carpinteria and the developer have knowledge of the sea level rise and earthquake threats to the proposed development, they would both be liable to third parties injured as a result of these natural disasters staying at the resort — the city for permitting the project, the developer for building it.

There is so much wrong with this project it should be denied at the earliest possible time.