State Justices Asked to Limit Alternative Development Sites

The state Supreme Court, reviewing a widely watched environmental dispute, was asked Thursday to limit the alternative sites that local officials must consider before approving proposed developments.

The case, along with a second dispute argued before the high court this week, posed a sharp clash between developers trying to combat needless delays and slow-growth forces trying to thwart what they see as environmentally harmful projects.

Lawyers for a proposed 400-room resort hotel in Santa Barbara County, backed by officials from more than 100 California cities, urged the court to overturn an appellate ruling they said would force costly studies of alternative sites that a firm did not own and could not easily obtain or develop.

Timothy A. Tosta, an attorney for the Hyatt Corp., said that in a 10-year legal and bureaucratic struggle, the developer had undergone 47 public hearings and spent about $6 million seeking approval for its hotel.

“Santa Barbara County and Hyatt have done everything right, acted in good faith and in full compliance with the law,” Tosta told the court. “We’d like to put an end to what has been a very long and exacerbating process.”

Philip A. Seymour of the Environmental Defense Center, representing foes of the development, urged that local agencies be required to explore a full range of potentially superior alternatives in preparing an environmental impact report before deciding on a project.

“That’s what those (reports) are for--to let us know what other options there are,” Seymour said.

At issue is a proposed hotel and conference center on a 73-acre plot at Haskell’s Beach, west of Santa Barbara. The plan has been hard-fought by the group Citizens of Goleta Valley as potentially harmful to a marsh, vegetation, archeological sites and a stretch of beach in the area.

Despite approval by the county Board of Supervisors and other agencies, a state Court of Appeal in Ventura twice ruled that, under the California Environmental Quality Act, the board’s environmental impact report failed to adequately consider alternatives suggested by opponents.

The board must examine “a reasonable range of feasible alternative sites” that could ease environmental concerns and include in its report a “brief discussion” of why any such sites are being rejected, the appeal court said in a Sept. 22 ruling.

Lawyers for Hyatt took the case to the state Supreme Court, arguing that the decision was so broad that it would improperly require consideration of sites even if they were already zoned for other purposes, beyond the jurisdiction of the local agency or not owned or obtainable by the developer.

Officials from Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and dozens of other cities also urged the high court to overturn the appellate ruling, saying that it would force them to make wasteful and “encyclopedic” reports on unrealistic alternatives.

Attorneys for the citizens’ group, backed by environmental organizations, replied that the developers were seeking to effectively eliminate the consideration of alternatives in virtually all cases.

In a friend of the court brief, lawyers for state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp joined the citizens’ group in urging the justices to uphold the appellate decision, saying that a ruling for the developers could “preclude meaningful public review” of governmental decisions.

However, in Thursday’s hourlong hearing, several court members appeared reluctant to affirm the appellate ruling. Justice Armand Arabian noted that all the governmental agencies involved ultimately approved the project. “You,” he told attorney Seymour, “are the only group fighting this development.”

“We think a horrible mistake has been made,” the lawyer said. “We would rather see the natural state preserved or some lesser development.”

On Tuesday, the justices heard arguments in a separate case that tests the legality of a novel local initiative barring any new project that causes traffic congestion at key intersections.

The measure, approved by voters in suburban Walnut Creek, was challenged by newspaper publisher Dean Lesher on grounds it conflicted with provisions of the city’s General Plan favoring growth. Similar challenges have been raised to growth-control measures in other communities.

Maria P. Rivera, attorney for Lesher in his bid to build a plant in the city, argued that the initiative improperly failed to inform voters how it would affect broader community planning. “Comprehensiveness was basically thwarted,” she said.

Attorney Mark I. Weinberger, representing the city, countered that it was up to officials to amend the plan to conform with the intent of the voters who passed the initiative. Requiring ballot measures to detail their effects on general plans would force voters to wade through initiatives the size of “mini-phone books,” he said.