The Bane Bill and the California Coast

The conflict that unfolded at The Sea Ranch in the early nineteen seventies helped produce one of the most consequential laws in California history. The Sea Ranch was a private planned community on the Sonoma coast, and when its developers began blocking public access to the shoreline, a legal and political battle erupted.

In nineteen seventy-two, California voters approved Proposition Twenty, the Coastal Zone Conservation Act, which created regional commissions to oversee coastal development. Legislators then turned that voter initiative into permanent law with the California Coastal Act of nineteen seventy-six, sometimes called the Bane Bill after its primary author, Tom Bane.

The law established that the California coastline belongs to all Californians. It created the California Coastal Commission to review development projects and protect public access. Today, California has about eleven hundred miles of coastline under the Coastal Commission's protection, a legal guarantee that exists in large part because of the fight over the fence line at Sea Ranch.