By Tim Green

Anyone who has had the pleasure of winding along Highway 1 through Big Sur knows that it is one of the most beautiful and breathtaking drives on the planet.

With cascading cliffs dropping sharply into the Pacific Ocean on one side of Route 1, and rugged, mostly inaccessible canyons carved by millennia of rainfall on the other side, driving through Big Sur can be a stunning, even spiritual experience. With as many as seven million visitors each year, chances are, if you’re reading this, you’ve experienced the wonder of Big Sur for yourself.

Maybe you’ve pulled over to take a picture by Bixby Bridge or got a lucky parking spot to take in the purple sands along blustery Pfeiffer Beach. For better or worse, Big Sur remains one of California’s — and the world’s — most wild and treasured places.

Sadly, this ecologically delicate region is facing a surge of visitors that threatens to crush the very things that make it so popular. When Highway 1 is intact and clear of slides, most people take in the sights of Big Sur on a one-way drive, heading north to Carmel or south to Cambria. This mobile mode makes sense, given that the Big Sur Coast Highway is officially designated an American National Scenic Byway. People pass through, rather than stay, in Big Sur. Hotel and motel rooms can be tough to secure. That’s by design.

Four decades ago, Monterey County adopted the Big Sur Land Use Plan in recognition of all that was worth protecting in this one-of-a-kind coastal region. The Plan limited development and prioritized protecting Big Sur’s amazing views and very limited road capacity to enable widespread enjoyment of the area, keeping residents and overnight accommodations to a minimum.

But now there is a movement to weaken the Land Use Plan in favor of more development, largely the conversion of campsites into lodgings and homes into event venues. Developing Big Sur beyond its current limitations would cause irreversible harm, for residents, visitors, and for future generations. So, while policymakers are debating the Plan’s update, they should act now to establish a temporary moratorium on new lodging units.

There’s a good reason for these limitations. It is physically impossible to widen Highway 1. No one, including Caltrans, will argue otherwise. The coastline here is steep and rugged, not well suited to recreation and with very limited access.

The Big Sur Land Use Plan has been referred to as the gold standard of such plans. It takes extraordinary steps to limit all development — residential, commercial, and public — to preserve the area’s remarkable, unspoiled beauty and equally, to allow continued access for the greatest possible number of visitors.

Throughout the Plan, visual access to Big Sur via Highway 1, a very limited capacity two-lane road, is emphasized, while physical access — destination development — is strictly limited.

Almost 50 years ago, the Coast Act of 1976 required the protection of and public access to coastal resources.

In response, the California Coastal Commission initiated the Big Sur Special Study Area and cooperated with Monterey County in developing the highly protective Big Sur Local Coastal Plan.

The resulting Monterey County transportation study included a statement that “Since the capacity of the existing highway cannot even support the projected recreational travel demand, no significant capacity appears to remain for future residential development, and future recreational use must be regulated as well.”

Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe, with their intense traffic and supersized overcrowding in peak seasons, have become cautionary tales for anyone trying to protect a universally loved natural area. The public complaints and pleas for a reservation system at Yosemite bolster the argument that the Plan limit all destination development in Big Sur and prioritize the public’s access to its Scenic Highway is the right decision.

It’s essential for the California Coastal Commission and Monterey County to hold the line against the growing efforts to increase development. Increasing lodging capacity in Big Sur — including converting homes and campsites to high-end commercial facilities — would exacerbate already-heavy traffic and would materially diminish the sense of tranquility and awe so many people come to Big Sur to experience.

Big Sur doesn’t belong only to the people who live there. It is an international treasure that needs protection from being overrun. Our county and state leaders may take months or years to hash out updates to the Land Use Plan. Meanwhile, they should set a moratorium on new lodging development, to prevent irreversible damage. Like so many of the most special places on the globe, the way we save Big Sur for future generations is to use it lightly now.

Tim Green is a 50-year resident of Big Sur and co-founder of Keep Big Sur Wild.