HUNTINGTON BEACH : City OKs Rezoning of Wetlands Sector

Following a public outcry to restore a vast area of former and existing wetlands, the City Council on Tuesday agreed to change the zoning of a 142-acre region to restrict future development.

The decision does not preclude any new development there but does place a roadblock in the path of property owners hoping to build in the area.

The council’s 5-1 decision, greeted by a standing ovation from the overflow crowd dominated by environmental activists, is the city’s first step toward resolving a 10-year impasse over how the land should be used.

The zone change formally designates as wetlands all but seven acres of the “white hole” area, so called because years of indecision over its specific use has left it a glaring white spot on city zoning maps.

Environmentalists argued that the land, a wide strip of mostly privately owned properties along the Pacific Coast Highway from Beach Boulevard to the Santa Ana River mouth, must be preserved and restored because it is a crucial natural breeding ground for birds and other wildlife.

Last week, the Huntington Beach Conservancy vowed to use recent publicity about the oil spill off the city’s coast to pressure council members to restore the area to a teeming natural wildlife refuge.

Although the state Coastal Commission has designated the area as an environmentally sensitive region, the property owners have contended that they have a right to develop their land and argue that most of the wetlands are too damaged to be revived.

The new zoning of the land, which retains existing zoning allowing limited development but adds a “coastal conservation” designation, has been promoted by city planners as an interim compromise in the dispute.

The measure was put forth as an interim remedy until property owners and environmental agencies can arrive at a a land-use settlement that is mutually amicable, such as the agreement finalized last year concerning the nearby Bolsa Chica Wetlands Reserve. The Pacific Coast Highway Coalition, a collection of environmentalists, property owners and government officials patterned after the coalition that resolved the Bolsa Chica dispute, was formed to address the “white hole” area controversy.

A narrow, seven-acre swath of the land, most of which is currently used by a boating brokerage company, was exempted from the zoning change. Deemed by the Coastal Commission as too badly degraded to ever be restored as wetlands, the land instead is designated for certain types of commercial development with no conservation clause.

About 83 acres owned by the Southern California Edison Co. was removed from the city’s original plan to declare 232 acres as wetlands. The City Council decided that the Edison land, on which the company operates a power plant and oil storage facility, was developed too extensively to restore as wetlands.