Sunken City: Exotic, Tourist Draw, Nightmare for Local Residents

By June Burlingame Smith, Contributor

In the past, Sunken City was a fun, if challenging, place to hike down to the tide pool at its base. We all did it, knew the dangers of the sliding cliff and falling debris, but we were careful. Anyone who chooses to enjoy naturally dangerous places on earth accepts that responsibility. 

Now, Sunken City has become an attractive nuisance because the well-meaning project to protect private property along its edge by building a fence has morphed into the unintended consequence of a “keep them out at any cost.” And young people, especially, love such an “in your face” challenge. 

The fence keeps almost nobody out as people can gain access from the shore or they can cut or go around the fence. But it does hinder access in an emergency. Teams regularly run practice sessions so they can be prepared to help when they are needed. Police can “sweep the park (Pt. Fermin)” but not Sunken City at night. Consequently, helicopters using bull horns and search lights are the answer to ongoing problems at night … waking everyone up within hearing distance, disrupting animals, children, and people with PTSD, in unpardonable ways.

Sunken City is a huge expense for the City and County of Los Angeles as well as devastating to the families of those who lose their lives. No one bothers or seems interested in totalling up the true cost, but it is costing citizens huge amounts of money to monitor, repair and rescue people from this “attractive nuisance.” Meanwhile, it’s been a great entrepreneur opportunity for others to make a buck.

Recreation and Parks says it doesn’t have the money to implement its plan to change things. It has done a geological study and knows what land is stable and what is not. And the city, with the permission of the Coastal Commission, voted to approve a fence (after a staff report that originally said to deny the permit and a second rather mysterious hearing was held a few months later) … not to keep people out of the area but to protect private property along the perimeter to the slide.

So we are confronted with the resultant situation: a fence that cuts off coastal access (a violation of the California Coastal Act) and doesn’t prevent people from using the area;  a dangerous debris area with chunks of concrete and old Red Car rail tracks ready to fall on people and harm or kill them; and an inadequate drain-off from Pacific Avenue.

Our leaders pay “lip service,” but do nothing except send in the police and tell us they have no funds.    

Enough of this economic and political nonsense.