Bolsa Chica Finance Bill to Be Deferred

In a move hailed by environmentalists, state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) announced Tuesday that she will withdraw her controversial bill that would have helped finance a proposed $300-million marina and housing development near the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Huntington Beach.

The decision to delay the bill--at least until next January--was applauded by City Council members who had requested the delay and by environmentalists who have fought for nearly two decades to prevent any development at all near the environmentally sensitive marshlands.

“When I introduced SB 1517 I said it was my goal to make the city a full partner in the planning process for this project,” Bergeson said to reporters gathered at her Newport Beach office. “The city has worked hard on the bill, but they have told me they need more time (to address) several key issues such as the development/annexation agreement and the impacts of the ocean cut on our beaches.

“This has been a tough decision for me because we are so close to passing the bill,” Bergeson said of the legislation, which would have created a privately controlled special district to govern and finance the preliminary stages of the proposed development.

‘Citizens Opposed It’

City Councilman Peter Green, a past president of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, an environmentalist group that opposes the measure, said the bill was introduced prematurely and would never have made it through the Senate committee.

“She probably withdrew it because she saw the city was going to vote against it and consequently the Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee would have voted against it. The citizens of this city clearly opposed it, and I am quite sure the City Council was going to vote against it,” he said.

Another past president of the group, Rhoda Martyn, said public opposition to the bill is rising and people are beginning to look at alternatives.

“I wish she would drop it permanently . . . because it’s a very bad bill. It’s a welfare bill for (Signal Landmark Inc.), and it will cost the public $200 million to pay for Signal’s infrastructure and in the process it will destroy the wetlands and the beach. It would be far, far cheaper for the public to purchase the wetlands outright. I think a lot of people are coming to see that,” she said.

Signal Unavailable

Signal Landmark Inc., the primary landowner in the Bolsa Chica area and the sponsor of Bergeson’s bill, was unavailable for comment but was said to be disappointed by the decision yet willing to continue working with city and state agencies toward passage of the bill next legislative session.

“I think that Signal realizes this is the best way to go,” Bergeson said.

The question of whether and how to develop property in Bolsa Chica has been debated for two decades. For several years Signal has sought to develop a 1,400-slip marina and 5,700 waterside homes on the 1,200 acres it owns in unincorporated county area south of Warner Avenue along Pacific Coast Highway--land that presently is under the jurisdiction of the County Board of Supervisors.

Signal has sought to win passage of the bill in order to improve the firm’s chances of getting a $44.8-million federal loan to help pay for construction of a $90-million navigable ocean channel to link the development to the sea. The firm also wants to develop hotels, restaurants and open-space recreation area on its property.

Environmentalist groups such as Amigos de Bolsa Chica have long argued that a navigable channel would destroy the most valuable wetlands--used as feeding and nesting grounds for migratory birds and other wildlife.

Under a 1985 agreement with the California Coastal Commission, Signal may proceed with its development in return for restoring 915 acres of wetlands and turning them over to the state.

Although Signal has said it would pay for restoration, environmentalists and some City Council members have worried that total funding for such a costly endeavor would not be guaranteed in Bergeson’s bill.

Overflow Crowds

Such concerns have persisted, especially in Huntington Beach, where two public hearings have been attended recently by overflow crowds that voiced overwhelming opposition to Bergeson’s bill. Even City Council members inclined to favor the development had told Bergeson they could not support her bill in the face of such strong citizen opposition. In a statement on Thursday, Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, whose district includes Bolsa Chica, announced that she would withhold any further support of the bill pending the city’s decision on it.

In deciding Tuesday to delay the bill--which she introduced last summer and then withdrew in August in the face of legislators’ concerns about funding of wetlands restoration--Bergeson vowed to continue working on the legislation with the city and other government agencies.

Stating that “it’s probably been the most challenging bill I’ve had,” Bergeson said she and her staff had worked up until Monday night trying to satisfy the city’s concerns about sand erosion, wetlands restoration and precisely how the city would annex the development--to no avail.

The Huntington Beach City Council was to hold a public hearing Thursday night at which it would then decide whether to support or oppose Bergeson’s bill--a hearing that has been canceled. Various council members have expressed concerns about different parts of the bill, and it became clear that a majority--perhaps all seven of them--would oppose the bill.

City Administrator Paul Cook summarized those concerns in a recommendation last week that urged opposition to the bill. “The latest changes incorporated into the bill have eroded protections that the city has fought to have included within the bill,” Cook said. “The beach erosion and wetlands protections have been weakened, the costs and who bears them are even more vague, and the district is given even broader municipal-type taxing powers that could supercede the city’s or the people’s governing authority.”