Obscure Law Delays Pierside Village Approval : Environment: Huntington Beach runs into a hitch stemming from a 1949 law prohibiting the sale of oceanfront land. City attorney to research issue.

Back in 1949, state legislators became alarmed at the increasing commercialization of California’s coast. So they passed a law restricting cities’ ability to sell “any portion of a waterfront.”

Now that law could derail the controversial Pierside Village project in Huntington Beach. Final City Council action on the project has been delayed while the city attorney’s office scrutinizes the obscure law and decides whether ocean-facing land near the pier is legally considered waterfront.

Pierside Village calls for the city to sell 3.5 acres of beach-and-bluff land near the pier to the Huntington Beach Redevelopment Agency. That agency, in turn, would lease the land to a developer who would build up to five new restaurants on the ocean-facing site.

The project has been one of the city’s most controversial in recent years. Some environmental groups claim that the restaurant development would ruin the city’s beach view. Other groups, including the local Board of Realtors, say the project would greatly help the city’s downtown redevelopment.

The City Council was on the verge of approving the Pierside Village land transfer Monday night, with four of the seven members favoring the action. But a final vote was delayed until April 15 after City Atty. Gail C. Hutton said the little-known state law may require that the land transfer be approved by six of the city’s seven council members.

The law in question says: “The legislative body (a city council) shall not sell or convey any portion of a waterfront, except to the state for use as a public beach or park, unless by a four-fifths vote of its members the legislative body finds and determines that the waterfront to be sold or conveyed is not suitable for use as a public beach or park.”

That law was passed in 1949, and according to legislative staff officials in Sacramento, it was designed to keep cities from selling coastal land for private or commercial uses.

Debbie Cook, spokeswoman for Save Our Parks in Huntington Beach, claims that the City Council majority is trying to do what the 1949 law forbids. She said the paved land just south of the pier is clearly waterfront property and is thus covered by the law.

Jonathan Chodos, the proposed developer, strongly disagrees. He said the paved land, now used as a parking lot, is neither “beach” nor “waterfront.”

The 1949 law does not define what constitutes waterfront land.

Hutton told the council that she and her staff will research the matter. She said she would have a legal opinion to them before the April 15 meeting so that the City Council would know whether six votes or only four votes are needed to sell the land proposed for Pierside Village.

Three persons on the council--Mayor Peter M. Green and Councilwomen Grace Winchell and Linda Moulton-Patterson--have said they will vote against Pierside Village. If Hutton rules that the 1949 law applies to Pierside Village, it would only take two negative votes to kill the project.