SANTA MONICA—Santa Monica will undergo a restoration project that will beautify the beach and combat rising sea levels. The three-acre project is located a mile and a half north of the Santa Monica Pier heading towards Malibu.

The Santa Monica Beach Restoration Pilot Project will restructure part of the beach to provide protection from the rising Southern California coastline with a habitat for plant life rather than the alternative, which would be a concrete wall. The new coastal ecosystem will feature a low fence, four native dune plants and a curvy path that will wind through the middle of the site for people to walk through.

Tom Ford, Executive Director of the non-profit environmental organization, The Bay Foundation, one of the partners of the restoration effort, said the project is an experimentation effort to see how the thousands of visitors each year to the Santa Monica beach respond to an area that welcomes wildlife such as the new birds that will flock to the area. The site area will be maintained by volunteers and people on the foundation’s staff for monthly trips to clean up the area.

Ford said the reason the pier was selected was because the city of Santa Monica volunteered to be part of this project, and the foundation sat with residents in the area to work out a plan to make sure they were comfortable with the idea.

The foundation broke ground on December 6 and will be using sand already at the site during construction. Work will take an estimated four weeks to complete.