HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Urged to Lease Land for Project

City Atty. Gail C. Hutton on Friday issued a legal opinion saying a little-known state law does affect the city’s proposed sale of beachfront land for the controversial Pierside Village project.

Hutton, however, said the law only restricts the city’s ability to sell the land and that leases are excluded. She therefore urged the City Council to consider a lease for the Pierside project.

Pierside Village is a downtown redevelopment project that calls for building a cluster of new restaurants on beach-bluff land just south of the pier. Environmental groups have for years opposed the project, but several civic groups, including the Huntington Beach-Fountain Valley Board of Realtors, support the development proposal.

In recent weeks, opponents of Pierside Village said that a little-known 1946 state law would require a four-fifths vote, or six of seven of the council members, to approve the city’s sale of land for the project. Three members of the City Council have said they will vote against Pierside, so the project would die if a four-fifths vote were to be required.

The 1946 state law says that it protects “waterfront” land. The law does not define “waterfront,” however, and the City Council asked Hutton for a legal opinion.

Hutton said the land near the pier is, indeed, waterfront, and thus the state law comes into play. But she said that the law does not require a four-fifths City Council vote if the council only leases the land.

Mayor Peter M. Green said Friday that Hutton’s suggestion is that the council lease the land to the Redevelopment Agency, then let that agency sublease the acreage to a private developer.

Green, who opposes the Pierside project, said the legal and financial stakes are so high that he is requesting additional legal opinions from three state agencies--the Coastal Commission, the State Lands Commission and the Coastal Conservancy. Green said he is also recommending that the city hire a private law firm that specializes in coastal matters to do additional research and give a legal opinion about how the 1946 state law may or may not come into play.

Whatever the outcome, a new city law requires a citywide vote on the project before it can be launched. That new law, passed by the voters last November, stemmed from a citizens’ initiative called Measure C.