The owner of a Carlsbad house built at the edge of the Buena Vista Lagoon near the beach has filed a lawsuit challenging the California Coastal Commission’s authority to impose a $1.4 million fine for coastal access issues on his property.
The national nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation filed the complaint Nov. 19 in San Diego County Superior Court on behalf of John Levy, who built the custom, two-story house in 2000.
Levy lived in the house a few years and later used it as a wedding venue known as Levyland, until the weddings were stopped because of complaints about noise, lighting and parking. Now Levy stays there on occasion but spends most of his time at his home in New Zealand.
The foundation’s complaint says the fine is an example of government overreach and that the commission has no authority to issue the penalties.
The only access to Levy’s home is through a private gate from Mountain View Drive. The gate remained closed to the public until this spring, when Levy opened it under protest to avoid an additional $1 million fine from the Coastal Commission.
“I am not blocking public access and in fact the city has opined numerous times that there has never been public access granted through the Mountain View gate,” Levy said in an email this week.
The now-open gate allows the public to use a wide trail that goes from Levy’s driveway along the western end of the lagoon to the beach just south of the Oceanside border.
Issues covered by the commission’s $1.4 million fine include a second gate and a fence that block a different trail next to the lagoon along his property, also the use of adjacent state property as a private parking lot, the construction of an unauthorized pickleball court, and more.
Levy said he is not required to open the second gate because Carlsbad has never accepted a lagoon access easement for the 300-foot trail, so it is not maintained and has become overgrown and unsafe.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents Levy free of charge, contends that the Coastal Commission has no right to fine Levy without first proving its allegations in court.
“Americans have a constitutional right to significant due process protections when the government seeks to impose punitive financial penalties on them or their property,” said Jeremy Talcott, an attorney with foundation, in a news release.
“By failing to provide procedural safeguards during its investigations or before imposing fines, the Coastal Commission is violating the Fourteenth Amendment rights of Californians like John Levy,” Talcott said.
The Coastal Commission voted unanimously in October to fine Levy after years of back-and-forth between him and the commission staff over a string of allegations related to public access, unpermitted construction, and habitat preservation requirements.
Levy built the Mountain View 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, 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.
He purchased the property in 1997 and obtained a a coastal development permit from the city in 1998 for the house, its driveway and the Mountain View gate. The city’s permit did not address public access through the gate.
The next hearing in his case will be sometime in February, Levy said.
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