the project's potential effect on traffic, noise, light, and views. In 2020, the commission required the elimination of basements for planned homes in Monterey because there was no way to be completely certain there were no artifacts on the sites in an archaeologically sensitive area, reversing the Monterey County Board of Supervisors' split approval of the projects. In 2020 and 2021, Santa Cruz city planners advocated housing projects including 175 apartments to be built downtown adjacent to Santa Cruz's main bus station. The commission opposed the downtown project because of insufficient plan conformity with height and density specifications. Commission district supervisor Ryan Maroney said the mass and scale of a building would impact the "coastal resources" of views, community character and aesthetics. Other In 2005, the commission found Dennis Schneider's proposed home in San Luis Obispo to be inconsistent with the California Coastal Act. The commission ruled that Schneider could still build a new home, but with 15 conditions including: his house must be reduced to , the house must be moved inland, and his barn can't be built because is too small for ranching cattle. Several of the conditions were targeted at preserving the character of the view that a boater would have of the coastline from offshore. While commission Executive Director Peter M. Douglas said “the view of pastoral areas from the sea to the land without human structures intervening is very important," the California 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled in a unanimous 2006 opinion: “We believe that it is unreasonable to assume that the Legislature has ever sought to protect the occasional boater’s views of the coastline at the expense of a coastal landowner." In 2008, studies showed seabirds on offshore rocks abandoned their nests after Fourth of July fireworks celebrations in Gualala. Commission executive director Peter Douglas said the fireworks organizer, the Gualala Festivals Committee, simply refused to work with the commission. The commission sent a cease and desist order banning the fireworks, and a judge in Ukiah rejected a request to delay the commission's ruling. Douglas explained "Our job under the coastal act is to protect marine resources, and that's what is affected here. We don't get involved in 95 percent of the fireworks displays along the coast because most of them don't have these impacts." Since 2008, the commission, the California state government, and Vinod Khosla have engaged in litigation over reopening a