Coastal Commission Grip in Mountains Reaffirmed

The California Court of Appeal has rejected a legal challenge to the state coastal zone boundary that, if successful, would have exempted a large area of the Santa Monica Mountains from tough development controls.

In a 31-page ruling, the appellate court upheld the dismissal last year of a lawsuit that sought to invalidate the coastal boundary on grounds that state Coastal Commission staff drew it farther inland than lawmakers intended.

The ruling was cheered by a homeowners coalition that intervened in the original lawsuit on the Coastal Commission’s side.

“This is one of the most spectacular areas in this part of the state, and I’m glad it won’t be left to the tender mercies of Los Angeles County,” David Brown, vice president of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, said Friday.

Chuck Damm, director of the commission’s south coast district that includes Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, called the ruling “good news, because our job is to protect . . . the resources within the coastal zone, and specifically within the Santa Monica Mountains.”

Sherman Stacey, lawyer for one of the landowners who brought the challenge, said he’s still certain lawmakers never meant to “take properties in for coastal zone regulation” that are as far from the coast as those of his client. Stacey said no decision has been made on whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Coastal zoning places more restrictions than local zoning on the environmental effects of development, limiting grading, visual impact and disturbance of vegetation and wildlife habitat. The boundary realignment sought by the lawsuit would have removed hundreds of parcels and thousands of acres of land in the Santa Monicas from the coastal zone.

At issue was language in the 1976 Coastal Act defining the coastal zone as “that land and water area” on Coastal Commission maps, and went on to describe how the maps should be drawn. In environmentally sensitive areas such as the Santa Monicas, the zone was to extend inland “to the first major ridgeline parallel to the sea, or five miles from the mean high tide line of the sea, whichever is less.”

The suit contended that the Coastal Commission improperly extended its jurisdiction in Los Angeles County by mapping the coastal zone far inland from the first major ridge so as to take in roughly the full five miles. In the process, the suit maintained, the staff hoodwinked lawmakers who did not review final versions of the maps before approving the Coastal Act.

In defending the current boundary, the commission maintained that the first major ridge is the one that creates a watershed--not the first topographic uplift as the suit maintained.

The ruling by the Court of Appeal, dated Wednesday, upheld last year’s decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Miriam Vogel, who rejected the challenge.

“The plain language of the statute does not support the contention the topographic standard is superior to the maps,” the court said.

Moreover, the court noted, legislation twice was introduced to change the maps, but lawmakers did not see fit to pass it.

“This history shows the Legislature twice has had the opportunity to set the coastal zone boundary at the first topographic elevation, but has chosen to leave it as placed in the map,” the court said. “It is reasonable to infer the Legislature based its failure to modify the boundary, at least in part, on the commission’s view that the watershed is the critical ridgeline, not the first topographic elevation.”

The lawsuit was filed in 1987 by Rossco Holdings Inc. and Michel T. Ghosn, who own three properties in Calabasas near Malibu Creek State Park that are three to five miles from the beach. The Coastal Commission has approved housing developments on all three tracts, but has allowed fewer lots than the owners sought and imposed other restrictions.

Rossco, owned by Beverly Hills attorney-businessman Leonard M. Ross, has approval for 22 lots on its 102-acre Piuma tract on Piuma Road and was allowed up to 34 lots on its 272-acre Quaker tract on Mulholland Highway in the Las Virgenes Valley. The commission approved 23 house lots on Ghosn’s 160-acre tract. None of the tracts have been developed.