HUNTINGTON BEACH : State May Challenge Pierside Settlement

State Deputy Atty. Gen. Robert G. Collins said an agreement Tuesday ending a four-year legal battle over land on which the city hopes to build its Pierside Village project does not clarify title to the site.

“It’s our view that the city still does not have clear title” to the land, Collins said. He spoke outside court shortly after Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Todd accepted an agreement between the city and the state that ended the city’s four-year lawsuit involving Pierside Village land.

The city’s suit sought to obtain ownership to three acres of beach-bluff land at Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street. The city hopes to use the property for a “restaurant row” development called Pierside Village.

The city’s legal action succeeded in getting the three joint owners of the land--Chevron USA, the Huntington Beach Co. and Southern Pacific Transportation Co.--to donate their interest in the property to the city. In addition, the state agreed to stipulate in the case that no state-owned tidelands are involved in the land being sought by the city.

Deputy City Atty. Robert Sangster said that the city’s lawsuit thus cleared ownership title to the land and that the entire package of land now belongs to the city. Sangster said the beach-bluff acreage, which is immediately south of the pier, can now be considered city-owned property, able to be leased to commercial restaurants in the proposed Pierside Village project.

But Collins on Tuesday said he strongly disagrees that the city has gained title to the land. He said he believes that the Southern Pacific Transportation Co.’s land donation to the city is legally faulty because it incorrectly defined the land boundaries and because it incorrectly claimed that no public easement exists on the land. Collins noted that the property has had a public easement, or right of way, on it since 1932.

“The title to the land is more confused now than before,” Collins said.

The city must get state Coastal Commission approval for the project before construction can begin.