No More Deaths: Santa Barbara County Supports Plan on Isla Vista Bluff Safety

After the death of 19-year-old Santa Barbara City College student Benny Schurmer on September 2 — the 13th person to suffer a fatal fall from the cliffs in Isla Vista in the past 20 years — County Supervisor Laura Capps, who represents the district, made it clear that she would do everything in her power to ensure that the cliffs of Del Playa Drive were a safer place.

She listened to students, community members, representatives from the Isla Vista Community Services District, Sheriff’s Office, and Fire Department. She met with friends and family of Schurmer, including Grace Wilson, a friend and fellow SBCC student who started a petition urging county leadership to address bluff safety by installing portable restrooms and improving the ineffective railings. 

Since then, the petition has garnered 11,129 signatures, and Supervisor Capps introduced an eight-point plan on Isla Vista bluff safety, which includes the suggestions made in the student petition and several others provisions, such as enhancing lighting and utilizing “hostile horticulture” to dissuade partygoers from wandering along the cliff’s edge.

On Tuesday, the County Board of Supervisors voted on the first steps of Capps’s plan, which would amend county codes to bring the minimum fence heights along the bluffs to at least six feet and incentivize private property owners to upgrade their fences along Del Playa by waiving any permitting fees.

It is the first item that Capps has introduced by herself as a supervisor, and she said that she was inspired by the courage of the victims’ friends and family members who showed up to speak during the hearing, including three mothers who lost sons in fatal falls from the bluffs. She described her eight-point plan as “common-sense provisions [that] will make an area of our county more safe.”

“These are not coincidences,” Capps said of the 13 cliff deaths since 1994. “When you have a pattern like this one, this is an epidemic; this is a problem; this is specific to an area because of the conditions.”

The higher fencing would be the first step in a greater effort to address the precarious Isla Vista bluffs, which have only become more dangerous in recent years. In one photograph shown by Capps, the support beams of a cliffside property are exposed due to erosion, while the backyard balcony overhangs a nearly four-story fall to the beach below.

Joe McDonald, another friend of the Schurmer family who spoke during the hearing, urged the board to approve the plan as soon as possible.

“The time to act is now. You don’t want to risk another death, which could have been prevented with the measures put forth in this plan,” McDonald said. “Without changes such as the one in this plan, it’s not a matter of if, but when another young person will die from a fall on the Isla Vista bluffs.”

The amendments for higher fencing and waiving permit fees for property owners updating their fencing both received unanimous approval from the board, and the supervisors directed county staff to look into the next steps of the safety plan, which would enhance the lighting and install dense shrubbery along the bluffs. Other parts of the plan, such as a memorial for the 13 young people who have fallen to their deaths, are already in the works thanks to joint efforts by community and student organizations.

Supervisor Joan Hartmann supported the eight-part plan, but added that she hoped there would be a “ninth step” in the future to get Isla Vista landlords to include language in leases to notify tenants of the dangers.

“I’m very supportive of these efforts, but we can’t stop here,” Hartmann said.

For Capps, the support for higher fencing is just the beginning of what will be a long journey to make the bluffs safer — including a community-wide effort to educate students on the dangers of drug and alcohol use in Isla Vista — but she promised to keep working to ensure the county is doing everything possible to prevent any future deaths.

“This is a commitment from me to keep fighting,” Capps said.

Click here to view Supervisor Capps’s complete eight-point plan on Isla Vista bluff safety.