Pact Reached on Chula Vista Bayfront Plan

An alliance of environmental groups that for years have stalled the development of Chula Vista’s bayfront announced a legal settlement Monday that will create a national wildlife refuge along the city’s shoreline while prohibiting any construction on environmentally sensitive Gunpowder Point.

Under the settlement, the bayfront’s landowner has agreed to scrap plans for a hotel and convention center on Gunpowder Point and convey 300 acres to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for management as a preserve for two endangered birds.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club and the League for Coastal Protection have pledged to drop two lawsuits that have blocked development along the shoreline and held up two nearby improvement projects: a critically needed freeway and a flood-control channel for the Sweetwater River.

The environmentalists also agreed not to oppose development of a less-sensitive area of the bayfront.

Stinging Blow to City

The settlement, which must still be approved by a judge, deals a stinging blow to Chula Vista officials, who have fought since the early 1970s to turn the degraded marshlands on the city’s western edge into an area with visitor appeal.

The city was not a party to the agreement and has long viewed the proposed 400-room hotel and convention center on Gunpowder Point as the vital centerpiece of its bayfront plan, which leaders hope will put Chula Vista on the tourist map.

“We feel that from the very beginning we had an environmentally sensitive plan that guaranteed protection for wetlands and birds,” Mayor Greg Cox said. “I’m disappointed that the various agencies that are a party to this settlement have chosen not to include the City of Chula Vista as a full partner. . . . I think it’s a travesty that we have been left out.”

Joan Jackson, a Sierra Club spokeswoman, heralded the agreement as a “tremendous thing that everyone should feel good about” and said the developer “deserves a lot of credit” for agreeing to the deal.

Environmental Goals Met

“We have met every single one of our original goals and feel tremendous about this,” Jackson said. “With this settlement, the county ends up with more than 300 acres for a variety of public, recreational uses and the preservation of habitat for two endangered birds. This goes a long way toward protecting the South Bay from environmental degradation.”

Jack Dimond of the Chula Vista Investment Co., a joint venture of the Santa Fe Land Improvement Co. and Watt Industries Inc., declined to comment on the agreement Monday. Dimond said he was reserving his remarks for Wednesday, when the parties had intended to publicly unveil the settlement.

The Chula Vista waterfront has been a battleground for warring environmental and developer factions for more than a decade, largely because it represents most of the last remaining wetlands along San Diego Bay. Of the more than 3,000 acres of wetlands that once framed the bay, only several hundred remain.

Gunpowder Point, at the edge of Sweetwater Marsh, has been eyed by both sides in the battle for years. Developers and civic leaders prize it for its million-dollar views, while environmentalists have fought to preserve it because two birds on the federal endangered species list--the California least tern and the light-footed clapper rail--nest in the area.

In 1984, it appeared that foes of development had lost a key round in the fight when the state Coastal Commission granted approval of the city’s bayfront plan--including the hotel and convention center, retail stores, restaurants and a marina. The commission’s action came despite protests from its own staff, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Fish and Game, all of which raised concerns about the effect construction would have on the two birds.

The first of the Sierra Club’s two lawsuits came later that year and challenged the commission’s approval of the plan. Filed against the state agency, it charged that the city’s development blueprint for the area violated the state Coastal Act because it contained roads that would cross marshland and did not set aside adequate space for the least tern.

In 1986, the second legal challenge involving work near the bayfront was brought--this time against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Transportation, San Diego County and several other defendants. The lawsuit sought to halt a construction project that included the widening of Interstate 5, the construction of a four-lane freeway called California 54, the construction of an interchange connecting the two, and a flood-control channel for the Sweetwater River.

The Sierra Club charged that the agencies had failed to set aside 178 acres of land to “mitigate” for environmental damage caused by the construction. In May, a federal appeals court sided with the environmentalists, ordering all work on the project halted until the 178 acres were transferred to the federal government.

Through it all, Chula Vista and the bayfront developer were at loggerheads over plans for Gunpowder Point. The developer, eager to proceed with construction along the shoreline, had urged the city to drop its insistence on a hotel on the point as a way of mollifying the Sierra Club. But city officials had held fast, unwilling to remove that element of the plan from several compromises that were on the table.

The settlement caps negotiations that have been ongoing sporadically for almost two years, Jackson said. She said an agreement was nearly struck a year ago but was nixed because the city refused to budge on the proposed hotel on Gunpowder Point.

Specific terms of the settlement call for the Chula Vista Investment Co. to turn over the 44-acre Gunpowder Point area, the 178 acres at issue in the federal lawsuit and 50 acres in an area known as the D Street Fill to the Fish and Wildlife Service, which will operate it as a wildlife sanctuary. No roads or other easements will be granted across the refuge. The city’s newly built Nature Interpretive Center--a $2.2-million project on Gunpowder Point--will remain open.

Cox, who has spent his tenure in office fighting doggedly for the bayfront plan, said late Monday that he had not yet seen specifics of the settlement and had yet to share the news with the City Council. He said it was “unfortunate” that “Chula Vista was shut out of the process entirely” and conceded that “there has been an estrangement” between the city and the developer in recent months.

“All we can really do now is go back to ground zero,” Cox said. “There isn’t much else we can do.”