Deal Near to Protect Wetlands, Let Playa Vista Plan Proceed

Tentative agreement has been reached on a complex land swap that would save most of the Ballona Wetlands from development and remove a major obstacle to construction of the massive Playa Vista project near Marina del Rey, officials on both sides of the deal said Friday.

The preliminary agreement, a result of many months of negotiations between state Controller Gray Davis and Maguire Thomas Partners, the Santa Monica development firm that is behind the Playa Vista project, provides protection for 60 acres of wetlands south of Ballona Creek. The proposal also calls for the state to sell 70 acres of open land on the north side of the creek to Maguire Thomas for $82.6 million.

When the 60 acres of wetlands are coupled with more than 180 acres previously saved from development, nearly 250 acres of wetlands frequented by at least two endangered species of birds will be preserved and restored to their natural state.

“We have been able to help protect and enhance a valuable and threatened environmental resource--namely the Ballona Wetlands,” Davis said in an interview Friday.

Although details of the intricate transaction have yet to be finalized, Davis expressed optimism that the deal can be signed within 60 days. “I’m very pleased that we are on the verge of an environmental benefit that no one thought possible a couple of years ago,” he said.

Maguire Thomas senior partner Nelson C. Rising refused to discuss details of the tentative pact but also expressed optimism that a final agreement is near.

A condition of the deal is that Los Angeles County drop its insistence on extension of a street from Marina del Rey across the wetlands.

Both sides said the agreement should help settle a protracted legal battle over the wetlands that has blocked development of the vast Playa Vista residential, office, retail, hotel and marina project for six years.

The lawsuit, filed by Friends of Ballona Wetlands against the California Coastal Commission, the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, challenged state and local government approval for the project.

At stake in the litigation is the future of 887 acres of open land between Marina del Rey and the Westchester Bluffs long owned by industrialist Howard Hughes. The property, which includes an aircraft plant and air strip, extends inland nearly three miles from the coast to near the San Diego Freeway.

After Hughes’ death in 1976, officials of his Summa Corp. began looking at development possibilities for the land. Summa received state and local government approval in 1984 to build a high-rise community on the land. The approval required about 180 acres of coastal land to be preserved as wetland.

But Summa’s development plans were stymied by the Friends’ lawsuit, filed in 1984.

In February of last year, Summa sold a controlling interest in the land--one of the most valuable pieces of urban real estate in the nation--to Maguire Thomas Partners and JMB Realty Corp. of Chicago.

Maguire Thomas immediately scrapped Summa’s development plan, completely redesigned the Playa Vista project and launched intensive negotiations to settle a thicket of environmental and legal problems that had frustrated their predecessor.

Rising, of Maguire Thomas, said the lawsuit has been a “very significant problem to overcome.”

The inch-thick settlement agreement calls for Maguire Thomas to turn over 60 acres of wetlands west of Lincoln Boulevard and south of Jefferson Boulevard in Playa del Rey to the State Lands Commission or the city of Los Angeles. When the 180 acres of wetlands in the Summa project are added, plus an additional eight acres in Playa del Rey, the total wetland area west of Lincoln Boulevard to be preserved and restored reaches 250 acres.

Attorneys for Friends of Ballona Wetlands and the state said the draft agreement filed in Superior Court last week goes a long way toward settling the lawsuit.

“We’re happy with the result because it gives us a big chunk of land,” said Mary Newcombe, attorney for the environmental group. She said the Friends want the area restored as a nature preserve.

Nearly 200 species of birds call the wetlands home at some point each year, including the endangered California least tern and Belding’s savannah sparrow.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Steven H. Kaufmann, representing the controller and the California Coastal Commission, called the agreement “a major first step in achieving an overall settlement here. . . . It breaks the logjam on the litigation.”

As part of the deal, Davis agrees not to oppose development of Playa Vista, one of the biggest development projects in Los Angeles history. Maguire Thomas wants to build 5 million square feet of office space, 11,750 apartments and condominiums, 720,000 square feet of retail space, 2,400 hotel rooms and a small craft marina with 750 boat slips. Environmental impact studies are under way. The revised project still needs city, county and state approval.

To complete the development, Maguire Thomas has long eyed a 70-acre parcel of land between Lincoln Boulevard and the Marina Freeway that the state acquired two years ago from the Hughes estate in lieu of inheritance taxes.

Rising said Maguire Thomas wants to build 900,000 square feet of office space, 2,032 residential units and 150,000 square feet of retail space on the land.

The tentative agreement calls for Maguire Thomas to make $27 million in payments on the property during five years with the balance to be essentially loaned by the state. The price of the land would be adjusted for inflation.

The settlement concept received initial approval last week from Superior Court Judge R. William Schoettler, who ruled the controller has the authority to enter into the deal and the price represents a fair and reasonable value.

“The judge’s decision is a clear signal that we are on the right track,” Davis said.