Guest Commentary: The Best Way to Keep
Big Sur Accessible? Limit Lodging Development
By Tim Green
Anyone who has had the pleasure of winding along Highway 1 through Big Sur knows that it is one of the most beautiful and breathtaking drives on the planet. With cascading cliffs dropping sharply into the Pacific Ocean on one side of Route 1, and rugged, mostly inaccessible canyons carved by millennia of rainfall on the other side, driving through Big Sur can be a stunning, even spiritual experience. With as many as seven million visitors each year, chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve experienced the wonder of Big Sur for yourself.
Maybe you’ve pulled over to take a picture by Bixby Bridge or got a lucky parking spot to take in the purple sands along blustery Pfeiffer Beach. For better or worse, Big Sur remains one of California’s – and the world’s – most wild and treasured places.
Sadly, this ecologically delicate region is facing a surge of visitors that threatens to crush the very things that make it so popular. When Highway 1 is intact and clear of slides, most people take in the sights of Big Sur on a one-way drive, heading north to Carmel or south to Cambria. This mobile mode makes sense, given that the Big Sur Coast Highway is officially designated an American National Scenic Byway. People pass through, rather than stay, in Big Sur.
Hotel and motel rooms can be tough to secure. That’s by design.
Four decades ago, Monterey County adopted the Big Sur Land Use Plan in recognition of all that was worth protecting in this one-of-a-kind coastal region. The Plan limited development and prioritized protecting Big Sur’s amazing views and very limited road capacity to enable widespread enjoyment of the area, keeping residents and overnight accommodations to a minimum.
But now there is a movement to weaken the Land Use Plan in favor of more development, largely the conversion of campsites into lodgings and homes into event venues. Developing Big Sur beyond its current limitations would cause irreversible harm, for residents, visitors, and for future generations. So, while policymakers are debating the Plan’s update, they should act now to establish a temporary moratorium on new lodging units.
There’s a good reason for these limitations. It is physically impossible to widen Highway 1. No one, including Caltrans, will argue otherwise. The coastline here is steep and rugged, not well suited to recreation and with very limited access.
The Big Sur Land Use Plan has been referred to as the gold standard of such plans. It takes extraordinary steps to limit all development – residential, commercial, and public – to preserve the area’s remarkable, unspoiled beauty and equally, to allow continued access for the greatest possible number of visitors. Throughout the Plan, visual access to Big Sur via Highway 1, a very limited capacity two-lane road, is emphasized, while physical access – destination development – is strictly limited.
Almost 50 years ago, the Coast Act of 1976 required the protection of and public access to coastal resources. In response, the California Coastal Commission initiated the Big Sur Special Study Area and cooperated with Monterey County in developing the highly protective Big Sur Local Coastal Plan. The resulting Monterey County transportation study included a statement that “Since the capacity of the existing highway cannot even support the projected recreational travel demand, no significant capacity appears to remain for future residential development, and future recreational use must be regulated as well.”
Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe, with their intense traffic and supersized overcrowding in peak seasons, have become cautionary tales for anyone trying to protect a universally loved natural area. The public complaints and pleas for a reservation system at Yosemite bolster the argument that the Plan limit all destination development in Big Sur and prioritize the public’s access to its Scenic Highway is the right decision.
It’s essential for the California Coastal Commission and Monterey County to hold the line against the growing efforts to increase development.
Increasing lodging capacity in Big Sur – including converting homes and campsites to high-end commercial facilities – would exacerbate already-heavy traffic and would materially diminish the sense of tranquility and awe so many people come to Big Sur to experience.
Big Sur doesn’t belong only to the people who live there. It is an international treasure that needs protection from being overrun. Our county and state leaders may take months or years to hash out updates to the Land Use Plan. Meanwhile, they should set a moratorium on new lodging development, to prevent irreversible damage. Like so many of the most special places on the globe, the way we save Big Sur for future generations is to use it lightly now.
Tim Green is a 50-year resident of Big Sur and co-founder of Keep Big Sur Wild.
(Originally printed in the Monterey Herald. Reprinted by permission of the author)
To learn more about Keep Big Sur Wild or to donate to this non-profit’s mission of protecting Big Sur by protecting its land use plan, see: https://www.keepbigsurwild.org/
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Tim Green is spot on! I am a native of Carmel, a third generation of the Lloyd family to live here with another two following me. That makes my granddaughter the fifth generation of my family, but the seventh of the Hatton and Martin families. In my childhood, we played all over Pt Lobos with hardly ever seeing a visitor. Now Highway 1 is clogged with cars parked from San Jose Creek beach to the Carmel Highlands entry sign. The trails have been degraded by the volumes of feet exploring the beauty of Pt Lobos. Carmel is overrun with visitors in town and the beach is heavily used. Big Sur was our wild place to visit. Nepenthe and an Ambrosio burger were treats. Sadly, our visits are less due to the increased traffic and diminished serenity. In my 82 years, I have witnessed our best loved places morph from open spaces of calm to tourist destinations visited by many. Hold tight, Big Sur! Do what you can to maintain the established limitations in order to remain reasonably overrun. I'm with you!
Well written and so very true, where to start ... A SF Chronicle newsman once ask, "so what's wrong with building (development) 200 more visitor-serving rooms in Big Sur?" Well, its not just the 200 rooms, you got to look at the whole picture to understand!
These 200 newly added/built rooms will also add not only 200 or more vehicles to Highway One's (Hwy 1) "destination traffic" these vehicles will displace visual access that is meant for ALL the people not just for the people that can afford Big Sur but also for the people that simply want to pass through and enjoy the Big Sur views.
It also now adds 400 or more worker vehicles that will now be added to Hwy 1 as someone will have to clean these new rooms & feed the guest occupying them, right? Note: I mention 400 or more workers because just recently one of the Inns in Big Sur stated they had 200 workers for their 40 room Inn ...
Now add all the new/more delivery truck trips per day or week that will be needed to supply these newly built 200 rooms for food and beverages to replenish these folks and resupply the stores also. More windows to wash, gardeners to weed, more lightbulbs to change, more, more, more vehicle trips per day!
Then there all the roadside facilities that so many people want built. That's right, more workers to answer the questions, to clean the toilets and the facilities themselves, and don't forget the trash that will now need to be picked up and thrown in the proper trash or recycle receptacles to be hauled away to the Monterey Landfill (50 mile away), yes more vehicles!
And because Big Sur does not have enough housing, most if not all of these new workers like other Big Sur employees will be traveling from as far away as the peninsula, Marina and Salinas too because so many of Big Sur's residential homes have been converted into STRs and wedding & corporate venues, both of which are a commercial visitor-serving use! So now you have all the businesses trucking in tables chairs, food & drink only to turn around a day or two later to haul it away and then do it all over again and again. And what about all the guest attending these events and the workers that will be needed to service them, yes that's right, even more destination vehicle traffic on Hwy 1.
And of course, with all new development there's now the need for lighting, all "night" lighting!! What then will become of Big Sur's nightly views? No longer will any of us (you or me) be able to enjoy the Big & Little Dippers or the Milky Way, and how about those moon eclipses and the like. What about Big Sur's wildlife and soundscape. Will Big Sur just become another once beautiful place that gets paved over ... think about it as places like this are being threatened by just a few greedy folks with development on their mind!!
So in reality its NOT just about 200 rooms, its all the shit that comes with it!
Tim Green is right on. As are Janet and Cindy. There is so much at stake, including water. But the most important this is the landmark, groundbreaking Coastal Land Use Plan for Big Sur MUST NOT BE CHANGED! You can’t count on the Coastal Commission anymore. Their palms are always open to the highest greaser. This is going to have to come from all of us, banding together and raising our voices so loud they cannot be ignored.
Great op-ed by Tim Green and comments by Ali and Janet! Alarmingly, the battle for the soul of Big Sur stands to be won by commercial interests. Despite the goals of the Coastal Land Use Plan to protect the near-wilderness character of Big Sur, the area already regularly booms with wedding industry fill-the-space DJ sound systems, open air rock concerts, and other events which bring the sounds-of-the-city into this glorious natural sanctuary. The sonic and scenic blighting of Big Sur needs to be stopped. Get involved!
Great comment by Cindy LLoyd as well.
Cindy has it right. The City of Carmel was the first to go. It was once a village, mom and pop stores, locals knowing each other a wonderful small town to grow up. Today...about 1/3 of the houses are owned by people who do not live there, and do not rent them out. Downtown is great for food, art and general tourist schlock. Try to buy a light bulb in town. It is Over-sold and over-advertised with continuing efforts to be a destination that is doable by car. Big Sur is an extension of what this kind of comercialization can do. The Coast is used as a magnet in the "selling" of natural undisturbed beauty as they say....with the front door being Point Lobos. One thing I know for sure is that over use will bring big money and big spenders, who do not have a clue about what is being destroyed. The Coastal Commission is tasked with "public access." But how that is done is left to the locals in Big Sur to figure out, defend and protect. Good luck with that. We have to continue to find ways to stop the madness. Great article....Tim Green
Love the comments. It reflects the love of not just the Big Sur coastline but of the Big Sur residents and community. At times I am conflicted with Mother Nature.
But now I am thankful she has shut down access to the coast. Yes it presented extreme hardships for citizens of the area yet at the same time, the road damage preserved the coast from tourist impact.
Tim and everyone that commented are correct, you have to make the choice to be sustainable, everything in America is excessive by design so choose excessive sustainability.
It all starts and ends with controlling the road, Hwy 1 is the problem and the solution.
If you need an example you won't need to go far just spend a full day at Asilomar enjoying the wide road marked for hiking and biking that is controlled at 25mpg for automobiles, while you're there notice the garbage and recycle bins are clean and accessible, the lodging and confrence center is managed well and maintained, there are people all day and night walking, biking and enjoying the beach path.