Mendocino Shoreline--to Wait or Not to Wait? : Residents in Clash With Coastal Panel Over Development

Mickey Elder stared down at the old and colorful map of her large oceanfront ranch and smiled weakly.

“I used to wonder if I would ever see it developed before I die,” she said sadly. “I’d say that, and I’d laugh.

“Well, I’m not laughing any more.”

Elder and her two sons have waited 16 years to build a resort community on the small ranch they own eight miles south of this tiny Mendocino coast town. About 12 of those years were spent waiting to see if her idea--an expansion of an earlier development--conforms to the state’s coastal plan.

Others along this, one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the country, tell similar stories of waiting years for the state to tell them what to do with their land.

But now they wonder: Is it best to wait a while longer?

Gov. George Deukmejian and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown have expressed dissatisfaction with the conservation-minded California Coastal Commission; both have suggested that big changes may be in order.

Since the changes would almost certainly result in a commission more likely to favor development, that prospect thrills local developers and chills area conservationists.

It also has drawn national attention because the North Coast, along with Big Sur, is one of the few largely undeveloped stretches of coastline left in California. If the Coastal Act fails here, said Sierra Club President Michelle Perrault, it will be rendered meaningless.

Deukmejian recently has criticized the commission for taking too long to implement the state’s Coastal Act, which was approved by voters in 1972 and enacted by the Legislature four years later.

He has threatened to strip the commission of its power and turn the matter over to an arbitrator of his own choice. He is expected to name someone who is favorable toward development.

At the same time, Brown (D-San Francisco) recently decided not to reappoint commission President Melvin L. Nutter, considered the agency’s most ardent and faithful conservationist, and commission member Carolyn McNeil, a Nutter supporter.

Meanwhile, Michael Fischer, executive director of the Coastal Commission since 1978--and a man much reviled by developers--has said he will leave the agency Friday.

These developments have drawn a lot of notice, especially here in Mendocino County.

In a move that angered some local property owners and pleased others, the commission last month voted unanimously to reject a locally drafted coastal development plan and to study suggestions that the number of new oceanfront homes be cut in half.

It gave the county until the beginning of August to consider more than 100 pages of recommended changes and rewrite the plan to make it comply with state law. But some people predict that the county will stall the plan until long after this deadline.

“All of a sudden, Duke (the governor) is saying maybe we ought to have a firm deadline and maybe we ought to have an arbitrator,” said Ronald Spath, general manager of the Fort Bragg-Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce. “People are beginning to ask, ‘Should we wait?’ ”

Supervisor Norman de Vall says that has already happened, and that the county is partly responsible for the delay.

“It’s real easy to throw stones at the Coastal Commission and its staff and the (Coastal) Act, but we’re to blame, too,” De Vall said. “Only in the last two weeks has the county gotten really serious about conforming to the law.”

At stake are about 180 miles of stunning shoreline, some with sandy beaches, the rest a series of rocky cliffs. Huge boulders stand offshore, each carved uniquely by the sea, which still breaks spectacularly against them.

Most of the area is rural--either pasture land or redwood forest--with a few small and scenic towns scattered along the way.

“The area is of national interest because of its magnificent beauty,” said the Sierra Club’s Perrault. “Not just the coast, but the pygmy forests and the redwoods--it’s just a very beautiful area.”

More than 8,000 parcels comprise the coastal area; 3,700 already have been built on, the remaining 4,400 have received the necessary approval. The county plan would have allowed another 3,400 buildable parcels; Coastal Commission staff members have recommended that only an additional 1,700 be allowed.

Most severely affected by the state staff recommendations would be two areas: the Irish Beach development in the south and grazing land around the small town of Westport in the north.

The staff suggests that these areas be left as agricultural land, not only for aesthetic reasons but also because development would add to congestion to California 1. Weekend visitors--as many as 50,000 at once--sometimes clog that two-lane road, which shimmies down the coast on a narrow shelf of land between the Coast Range mountains and the ocean.

Some local residents are upset because the commission, while recommending a cut in the number of houses allowed, did not suggest a comparable reduction in the number of hotel rooms. Tourists arriving in bunches on weekends aggravate the traffic problem more than residents, they said.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Fort Bragg real estate agent Jackie Norman. “They’ll approve a (new) hotel, but when someone wants to build a house and maybe add a (rental) unit or two, they won’t allow it.”

Coastal Commission staff members argue that tourist facilities were singled out as a “priority use” of the coast when the Coastal Act was written. “It logically follows that the plan must retain sufficient sites to meet projected demand,” they concluded in their report.

Gordon Moores, one of Mickey Elder’s sons and a developer of Irish Beach, is critical of both the county’s pro-development stand and the state’s pro-conservation position. “You have the county, which believes in private property rights more than they should, and you have the Coastal Commission staff that believes in following rules even when they don’t make sense in this case,” he said.

Although many people concede that the commission has allowed building on legal lots, they complain that the commission does not allow subdivisions.

“You have to remember that we’re dealing with people, some of whom bought their land 20 or 30 years ago intending to give it to their children,” said county Supervisor John Cimolino. Many residents also complain about the state’s plans for public access to the beach.

“It’s a nice idea, but it’s not feasible,” Norman said. “A lot of it (the coastline) is dangerous. . . . Some (proposed access lanes) are down 80-foot bluffs.”

Cimolino pointed out that the county’s plan was shaped during more than a year of weekly public meetings, during which the issues of public beach access and development were carefully considered.

“I firmly believe that what we have here (the rejected county plan) is what a majority--a majority--of people on the coast want,” he said. “And despite what the Sierra Club says, it won’t desecrate the coast.”

Others aren’t so sure.

“The plan has been bastardized . . . by all the people trying to get in before the gate is closed,” said Susan Carrell of Mendocino.

One developer who was trying to get in before the gate was even built is Bill Moores, another of Mickey Elder’s sons and one of the owners of Irish Beach. Although the Coastal Commission staff has rejected his proposal to add 650 lots to the 420 already approved, he hopes the full commission will reconsider.

“Our problem is not with the Coastal Commission, it’s with the Coastal Commission’s staff,” he said, echoing sentiments expressed by several others.

“When the act was revised by the Legislature in ‘76, we were happy,” he said. “Our project fit their criteria perfectly--it’s contiguous with existing development, there’s water available, it doesn’t affect any endangered species and it’s located on a part of the highway that isn’t congested.”

He discounted the commission staff report challenging each of those points, but said he is open to discussing them.

“We are willing to compromise,” he said. “But we won’t take a wipe-out (total rejection). There are too many years in this project for that.”

Conservationists, however, are determined not to sacrifice the intent of the Coastal Act in the name of compromise.

“This is the scenic beauty people had in mind when they approved the act,” Perrault said. “If it goes down the drain, it will make a mockery of the effort to protect the coast.”