(The following story by Hans Laetz appeared on the Ventura County Sun website on July 5.)
LA CONCHITA, Calif. — Residents of the hard-luck beachside community of La Conchita call it the “great railroad robbery.”
The Union Pacific Railroad has fenced off the track-side land used for generations as the community’s main street, community park and impromptu common front yard and blocked access to the ocean in a move the local Coastal Commission office says is likely illegal.
New “no trespassing” signs have been posted on the strip, and a gate has been installed across a drainageway leading down to the beach — a square culvert used for years by people to crouch down and scuttle under the tracks and oceanfront Highway 101 to reach the water.
The gate was quickly pried off its posts by persons unknown, undercutting the La Conchita community leaders who have for years sought to lease their side of the 1,200-foot-long, 40-foot-wide strip of land. That vandalism means those talks are off, a Union Pacific lawyer said.
“The railroad wishes to proceed with its plans to remove vegetation from the property, including palm trees,” Union Pacific attorney David M. Pickett told townspeople in a demand letter sent in late June. Pickett noted “the recent vandalism to the chain on Union Pacific’s gate” and gave La Conchita residents 30 days to remove trees, shrubs and grass planted over the years to beautify and reduce dust on the railroad’s land.
Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoe Richmond in Sacramento said the railroad has federal safety rules that require its right of way to be kept free of trees or bushes that might fall on the tracks or block engineers’ sight lines toward crossings or places where trespassers might be on the rails.
Strawberry truck moved
Longtime La Conchita fruit stand operator Ray Gann has had to move his strawberry truck off the highway-adjacent railroad land and into an unused gas station because of the new fence.
“This time, Jesse James is working for the railroad,” he said.
The coastal hamlet of La Conchita was devastated on Jan. 10, 2005, when the rain-soaked bluff that towers over it gave way, killing 10 residents and damaging or destroying 33 houses. The 40-foot-wide strip of vacant land between the town’s main street and the Union Pacific track served as a temporary morgue, mobile command center, Red Cross feeding station and emergency parking lot for more than a week.
Since then, the strip had reverted to its prior use as an overflow parking lot, school bus turnaround and fruit stand site. Part of it has been landscaped with grass, banana and palm trees and benches.
We planted grass on it’
“We have used that strip for 60 years without any complaint from the railroad,” said Mike Bell, a La Conchita activist who has lived since 1983 in a house that fronts the strip, tracks, railroad, freeway and ocean, in that order.
“We planted grass on it decades ago because our kids were getting allergies and asthma from the dust and weeds that the railroad was growing,” said Karen Oren, another volunteer. “And after that last slide, we needed a meeting place, and this was as far from the slide that we could get.”
Birthday parties for La Conchita kids were held in the track-side park because parents did not want all of the small community’s kids at any particular house should another landslide rumble down the bluff, Oren said. The nearest public meeting area, school or library is in Carpinteria or Ventura.
Stepchild of Ventura County
As of late June, the parklike garden along the track was fenced off with a hand-railing-type barrier. A Union Pacific spokeswoman said the final configuration of the fence, and ultimate removal of the landscaping, is up in the air.
“We are continuing to work with agencies to try to come up with a solution,” said Richmond. “We think the local government agencies may be able to work out a lease for the land.”
Fat chance, said local residents. Ventura County has erected a sign at the entrance to La Conchita proclaiming it an unsafe area, and residents and the county have just begun a trial over residents’ claims that what they call a botched landslide prevention effort after a 1995 landslide led to the deadly 2005 slide.
“La Conchita is the stepchild of Ventura County,” Bell said. “We are not expecting any help on this.” County Supervisor Steve Bennett, who represents the west county, was not available for comment.
Lindsay Nielson, a Ventura College of Law real estate professor, said the railroad company is a quasi-public utility and has the overwhelming upper legal hand. Any possible right to usage of the land, by virtue of a long-running, continuous public trespass, ranks below a railroad utility’s property rights and federal laws, he said.
“You can’t threaten these railroad people,” Nielson said. “In 2005, their tracks here were submerged in mud, and they are not very happy with La Conchita and its people.”
The Ventura land-use lawyer has seen the railroad spar with other people, like the Faria Beach residents who complained that a railroad crossing that was in use for 70 years was closed off last year by Union Pacific.
Near Carpinteria, the railroad is in a fight over a fence it has built near Santa Claus Lane to prevent sand from blowing onto the rail line. The fence prevents beachgoers from crossing the tracks, a possible violation of the state Coastal Act, a state official said.
The state Coastal Commission office in Ventura has entered into the La Conchita fray, as it considers the drainage culvert “to be the only accessway to that beach that does not involve people with surfboards running across four lanes of U.S. 101, with traffic going by them at 65 miles an hour,” said enforcement officer Pat Veesart.
“We believe that fence and gate require a coastal development permit, and we’ve contacted the county and asked them to take enforcement action,” Veesart said. Although a permit could be legally granted to Union Pacific for the fence and the landscaping removal, Veesart said, closing the beach accessway under the tracks “would be contrary to the state’s Coastal Act.”
Access a question mark
“Are people driving up from Ventura to crouch under the tracks and run down to the beach?” he asked. “Maybe not, but it would be our recommendation that public access be maintained.”
Ventura County’s Planning Division is not sure if the Coastal Commission beach access laws override the Public Utilities Commission’s railroad regulations, which would allow Union Pacific to close the culvert.
The county is in charge of enforcing state coastal access laws in La Conchita and is evaluating the legal issue, Nancy Butler Francis, the division’s manager for land use permits section, said in an e-mail.
That leaves La Conchita’s beach access a question mark, and its main street narrowed roughly in half, with the dirt strip next to the pavement off-limits.
“The school bus can’t turn around, we have no place to park, and we get tourists in here stuck with RVs that can’t turn around,” Jack Oren said. “They cut off our beach access; I’ve been using that for 40 years.”
Berry salesman Gann said his business has dropped a little bit since he gave up his high visibility location perched on railroad company land.
“Life was sure a lot simpler before the railroad company discovered we were growing grass along here, instead of dust and weeds.”