Coastal Panel Won’t Rehear Pierside Plan : Development: Door to the oceanfront project is left open as commissioners decide that ‘no substantial issue’ is involved. Opponents express outrage.

The state Coastal Commission, on a 5-4 vote, stunned an audience Wednesday by leaving the door open for Pierside Village, the controversial complex proposed for oceanfront property.

In its surprise move, the commission rejected the recommendations against Pierside by its own staff, the state attorney general’s office and the State Lands Commission.

Instead, the Coastal Commission continued its 1986 approval of the controversial project simply by refusing to hold a new hearing on the matter. Many in the Huntington Beach City Hall audience had waited all day to testify and expressed outrage at the vote.

With that vote, a procedural move, the commission declared that it does not consider Pierside “a substantial issue” worthy of a full new hearing. Thus, no additional testimony was taken.

Coastal Commissioner Roger Slates, who has previously been embroiled in controversy on the Orange County Planning Commission, led the move that prevented a full-scale commission hearing. Slates made the motion that “no substantial issue” was involved. He was supported by commissioners Steve MacElvaine, Mark Nathanson, Bonnie Neely and David Malcolm.

Doug Langevin, a Huntington Beach business owner and longtime critic of Pierside Village, said, “The people of Huntington Beach, by the action of Roger Slates, have been denied their First Amendment rights to free speech.”

Mayor Peter M. Green, another foe of the project, said he was shocked by the commission’s action.

“There were a number of substantial issues involved, and a hearing should have been held,” Green said.

Jonathan Chodos, spokesman for the proposed developer of Pierside Village, left immediately and could not be reached for comment.

The Huntington Beach City Council on Monday night voted 4 to 3 to deny a lease of city-owned land for the Pierside project. But the council could undo its action simply by the shift of one vote.

Opponents of the project said Wednesday that their ultimate weapon is a new City Charter amendment called Measure C. The measure, approved by 73% of the city’s voters last November, now requires a citywide vote of approval for any major construction on city beaches or parkland. Opponents of Pierside say the project would fail in a vote.

Developer Chodos, however, has said he may go to court “to seek clarification of the terms of Measure C.”

The attorney general’s office and State Lands Commission both have said that Huntington Beach may not allow any new commercial buildings on land at the pier because that land has a public easement, or right of way.

The Coastal Commission staff had also cited the public right of way as among “substantial issues” needing to be aired. The commission staff said they did not know about the right of way in 1986, when the Coastal Commission first approved Pierside.

The commission staff also said the project would violate the state Coastal Act’s prohibition against destroying scenic views.

But Slates, in leading the move Wednesday that kept Pierside alive, declared he saw no major issues involved.

Last year, Slates drew criticism after he reportedly solicited donations from developers for a state Assembly candidate. Some of those solicited had projects pending before the Orange County Planning Commission, of which Slates is a member.

Slates, a semi-retired real estate consultant, was accused in 1989 of another alleged conflict of interest: voting as a city planning commissioner on matters that financially benefited Huntington National Bank. According to a complaint filed against him, Slates was a bank stockholder. That complaint is currently under investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Slates is an alternate member of the Coastal Commission, filling in when another member is absent.

Ironically, City Councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson, who strongly opposes Pierside Village, was appointed to the Coastal Commission just two hours after the vote Wednesday.