Coastal Services Center

Evaluating the effectiveness of a coastal resource management program is a challenge to accomplish because of staff and financial constraints. With a legislative mandate spurring them on, California managers have developed an ongoing program reviewing how well the goals, policies, and objectives of the state's Coastal Act are being implemented.

"Program evaluation is a tough issue and a really important one," says Tania Pollak, California Coastal Commission coastal program analyst. "We've made significant changes to our program as a result of the ReCAP."

ReCAP, or Regional Cumulative Assessment Project, is a process the Coastal Commission has developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the state and local coastal programs throughout the state's coastal zone. The review includes everything from identification of critical regional issues, to clarification and assessment of what is causing resource impacts, to recommendations for specific program improvements.

The periodic reviews will help keep California coastal management "effective," says Pollak, because they detect resource changes and provide guidance for improving decision making.

The Need for Review

Management of coastal resources in California is a partnership between the state Coastal Commission and local jurisdictions that develop local coastal programs. The state's Coastal Act requires the commission to "periodically review" the local coastal programs to ensure that their policies and regulatory actions are being carried out consistent with the state's program. Prior to ReCAP, however, the commission was limited in its ability to effectively do reviews because of budget and staffing issues.

"We needed to try to make the reviews more efficient and feasible," Pollak explains. "We needed something we could do on a regular basis."

The ReCAP methodology was developed and tested during a two-year pilot project that was funded by a 1992 Coastal Zone Management Act 309 grant for program enhancement. The pilot project culminated in the completion of a manual that provides step-by-step guidance for carrying out future reviews. Pollak notes that the manual has been used as background to conduct two more regional reviews, and a third is under way.

Natural Boundaries

Because serious impacts to the coastal zone are generally a result of the cumulative impacts of development in a watershed or geographic region, the commission chose to conduct the reviews at a regional rather than local level. By evaluating several local programs simultaneously and focusing the review on the highest priority issues, Pollak says the new process is more efficient and effective than previous evaluation efforts.

"We want the regions to make sense from a resource point of view, which does not necessarily follow political boundaries," Pollak explains. "We may be evaluating one local program or we may be evaluating several of them."

Since it would be extremely time and staff intensive to do a comprehensive review of every single issue a region may be experiencing, Pollak says they set priority issues and "boil them down to specific indicators we can evaluate."

She gives the issue of public access as an example. Public access is too broad a topic to evaluate completely, so they break it down into measurable components. These indicators might include looking at how many new access ways have been established, the number of beaches that are available to the public, or the number and quality of support facilities that are available.

Step by Step

The steps involved in conducting a regional review include selecting the Coastal Commission district office that will be part of the review team. The team of three or four staff members then identifies the region, determines the key issues, catalogs the region's coastal resources, gathers data, evaluates the cumulative impacts to coastal resources, and reviews the local coastal programs.

To identify priority issues, Pollak says, the review team interviews local officials and managers. Workshops and meetings are held to gather public input. The review team also evaluates development trends and looks at the permits issued by both the state and local governments.

She notes that some areas of the California coast don't have local programs. When this is the case, the state retains jurisdiction so "we're evaluating the commission's program and actions as well, which I think is an important part of this."

The review culminates with a list of recommendations that might include how to fix problems that were identified, how to improve management of the resources, recommendations for changes in policy language or procedure, or suggestions for an educational component.

Challenges and Changes

While the California program is proud of ReCAP and recognizes changes that have come about as a result of the reviews, the process is not without its challenges. Getting necessary data and ensuring that the local programs make the recommended changes are chief hurdles.

"One of the biggest constraints to the review process is data," Pollak says. "There are a number of issues and problems that we would like to analyze, and what we found was a real lack of data. That reality will often influence how the analysis is done and what issues are looked at."

Pollak advises that "it helps greatly to develop baseline data before initiating the public start of a review process." Before beginning a review, the team compiles all the permits that were issued by the local coastal programs into a database or geographic information system (GIS).

Another "frustration," says Pollak, "is that our statute doesn't require the local government to adopt our recommendations." Still, because the review team works so closely with the local governments, the recommendations are "not a surprise" to the local programs and "they're generally pretty open" to considering the changes. The local governments have a year to act on the review team's recommendations.

She notes that some of the recommended changes the state program has made include modifying the information that is required as part of permit applications, and the development of a program to address dedicated easements.

The review process is still fairly time and staff intensive, but Pollak says this is improving with each review that is done.

Keeping Pace

Although doing a ReCAP review can be challenging, Pollak says they are worth the time and energy.

"I think one of the benefits is that it can be a way of really building relationships with local governments," she says. "A big part of what ReCAP tries to do is recognize that there can be a lot of changes in an area after a local government starts its regulatory program.

"A big benefit of ReCAP is the ability to look comprehensively at a program and modify the way it addresses these changes."

For more information on the California Coastal Commission's Regional Cumulative Assessment Project, point your browser to www.coastal.ca.gov/recap/rctop.html. You may also contact Tania Pollak at (415) 904-5284, or tpollak@coastal.ca.gov.