HUNTINGTON BEACH : City’s Annexation of Bolsa Chica Begins

After two decades of often-controversial negotiations over the fate of the Bolsa Chica area, the city Monday took the first step toward annexing the 1,603-acre unincorporated region.

The City Council approved an agreement under which the city will have lead authority governing environmental impact studies and other activities related to the annexation and partial development of Bolsa Chica. County supervisors approved the agreement earlier this month.

The action begins an 18-month process to annex the area, which will include more than 1,000 acres of preserved coastal wetlands, said Jim Palin, the city’s deputy zoning administrator.

“The dominoes have been set up, and now we have to knock them down one at a time,” Palin said.

For example, the annexation must still be approved by the State Lands Commission, which owns some of the region, as well as the Local Agency Formation Commission. Although those agencies support the land transfer, both require environmental-impact and land-use studies to be completed before approving the change, Palin said.

County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, chairwoman of the coalition that last year hammered out a Bolsa Chica development agreement, hailed the city-county pact as “a historic event.”

“I feel like a mother who is giving up a baby for adoption,” Wieder told the council during Monday’s meeting.

The council on Monday also approved an agreement with Signal Landmark Co., owner of most of the Bolsa Chica land, under which the firm will reimburse the city for all costs related to the annexation.

Included in those reimbursement charges is a $26,500 traffic study on the area, which council members also approved Monday. The study is the first of several reports due on the traffic impact of the area’s proposed development, Palin said.

A coalition of environmentalists, landowners, developers and government officials in May, 1989, agreed to a development-preservation compromise for the Bolsa Chica area. Under that agreement, about 375 acres along the northeast edge of the region will be developed into housing tracts. The number of homes to be built is still being studied.

The settlement also will protect 1,104 acres of the Bolsa Chica State Ecological Preserve, including more than 1,000 acres of active wetlands. Another 126 acres of the area is designated for a regional park, which will wrap around the southern edge of the preserve.

The annexation of Bolsa Chica, which the county has controlled since 1964, will dramatically increase the city’s geographic size, and the resulting population growth will significantly boost the city’s level of state and federal funding, Palin said. The exact amount of additional funding has not yet been determined, he said.