California Supreme Court Holds Coastal Commission Lacked Appellate Jurisdiction Over Local Permit Decision

The California Supreme Court unanimously held that the California Coastal Commission lacked appellate jurisdiction over a coastal development permit granted by the County of San Luis Obispo, concluding that the proposed residential development was not located in a sensitive coastal resource area (SCRA) and was one of the site’s designated principal permitted uses. 

The Court further held that courts must exercise independent judgment—not substantial evidence review—when the Commission’s jurisdictional claim turns on interpreting a local coastal program (LCP). Shear Dev. Co., LLC v. Cal. Coastal Comm’n, ___ Cal. 5th ___, 2026 WL 1102317 (2026).

Shear Development applied to the County of San Luis Obispo for a coastal development permit to build single-family homes on residential lots in Los Osos, an unincorporated coastal community of about 15,000 residents. The lots were zoned “Residential Single-Family,” for which the County’s LCP designated three principal permitted uses, including single-family dwellings. The County’s Board of Supervisors approved the permit, but two members of the Coastal Commission appealed the County’s decision to the Commission for de novo review. The Commission denied the permit, asserting appellate jurisdiction on two grounds: (1) the proposed development was in an SCRA based on the LCP, and (2) the development was not designated as the sole principal permitted use for the site. Shear filed a petition for a writ of administrative mandate. The trial court denied the petition, finding for the Commission on the SCRA issue, and the Court of Appeal affirmed. The California Supreme Court granted review and reversed. 

On the threshold question of what standard of review applied, the Court held that because the jurisdictional dispute turned entirely on interpretation of the LCP—enacted law—rather than any contested factual question, the proper standard was the court’s independent judgment. The Court disapproved Charles A. Pratt Constr. Co., Inc. v. Cal. Coastal Comm’n, 162 Cal.App. 4th 1068 (2008) to the extent it had applied substantial evidence review to what was actually a legal question about LCP designations. 

Turning to agency deference, the Court concluded that neither the County nor the Commission was entitled to deference. Both entities had co-authored the LCP through an iterative process of drafting, review, and certification, placing them on equal footing regarding authorship and enforcement. The Commission determined that the project was in an SCRA because it was in an area designated as a “sensitive resource area” (SRA) in the LCP. However, neither the County nor the Commission demonstrated a long-standing, consistent interpretation of the relevant SRA. The Court held that where two agencies that administer the same statute offer incompatible interpretations and neither has a clearly superior claim to deference, the court should resolve the legal question without deference to either. 

On the merits of the SCRA question, the Court conducted an independent, whole-text analysis of the SRA that the Commission claimed encompassed the project. The Court found that multiple textual indicators pointed against the Commission’s reading. Additionally, extrinsic evidence, including the legislative history of the LCP amendment that created the SRA, confirmed that neither the County nor the Commission intended the SRA to include the area in which the project was located. The Court therefore concluded the development site was not in an SCRA, which undermined the Commission’s asserted basis for appellate jurisdiction. 

On the principal-permitted-use issue, the Commission relied on Public Resources Code section 30603 (a)(4)(A), which confers appellate jurisdiction over “[a]ny development approved by a coastal county that is not designated as the principal permitted use.”  The County Code designated three principal permitted uses for the proposed development site, one of which was single-family dwellings, which Shear proposed to build. The Commission argued, however, that this was not “the” principal permitted use, and hence that it had jurisdiction under the statute. The Court rejected this interpretation, concluding that the statutory phrase “the principal permitted use” encompassed the plural—meaning the Commission had appellate jurisdiction only when the proposed development was not designated as any of the principal permitted uses. The Court noted that the Commission’s own interpretation had been inconsistent, having certified the County’s LCP in the late 1980s using language presupposing multiple principal permitted uses. Because Shear’s proposed development was for one of the site’s three designated principal permitted uses, the Commission lacked jurisdiction on this basis as well. 

Shear has significant practical implications for the Commission’s exercise of appellate jurisdiction going forward. By requiring independent judicial review of LCP interpretation, denying automatic deference to the Commission when local governments disagree, and construing the principal-permitted-use provision to encompass multiple designated uses, the Court substantially narrows the circumstances in which the Commission can override local permitting decisions. In particular, the principal-permitted-use holding is likely to curtail the Commission’s ability to assert jurisdiction in coastal counties, like San Luis Obispo, that designate multiple principal permitted uses for their zoning categories.