Leniency on Beach Encroachment OKd : Land use: Coastal Commission favors county plan for Sunset Beach over the stricter line recommended by its staff.

The state Coastal Commission, overriding a staff recommendation that “pressure be kept on” homeowners here who have illegally built on the public beach, has instead voted 6 to 4 to accept Orange County government’s more lenient land-use plan for this oceanfront community.

The county’s plan allows “interim encroachment” while the issue is studied in more detail.

The Coastal Commission staff had urged the agency to require the county to take a stricter line on beach encroachments. But on the motion of Coastal Commissioner Roger Slates, the agency on Wednesday voted to accept the county’s less stringent plan for Sunset Beach.

“The County of Orange has indicated its intent to solve the (encroachment) problem,” said Slates, who is also a county planning commissioner.

On Wednesday Slates engineered the commission’s continued approval of Pierside Village in Huntington Beach. Opponents of that project, which calls for the building of a complex of restaurants by the city’s pier, had hoped to obtain a new hearing on the matter, as the commission staff had recommended. The staff also recommended that the commission rescind its previous approval of the controversial project.

But Slates argued that no “substantial issue” had been raised to justify a new hearing. The commission, on a 5-4 vote, accepted Slates’ motion and refused to take new testimony. The action produced shock and anger among an audience of Huntington Beach residents who had waited all day to testify before the body.

The Sunset Beach issue came before the Coastal Commission immediately before the Huntington Beach-Pierside question. In both matters, Slates was the key figure.

Chuck Damm, a Coastal Commission district director, said the staff recommended a tougher approach on beach encroachments in Sunset Beach. As an unincorporated community, Sunset Beach comes under county government jurisdiction.

“The staff is interested in keeping the pressure on the County of Orange in resolving” the problem of private homeowners building onto the public beach, Damm said. “The county needs to address this beach encroachment issue the same as Newport Beach” has recently done.

Ron Tippets, chief of coastal planning for the county’s Environmental Management Agency, countered that the county is studying encroachments in Sunset Beach and added that the county believes the current situation in Sunset Beach “really does not interfere with public access.”

Most of the dispute about the county’s land-use plan for Sunset Beach concerned businesses on Pacific Coast Highway. Chuck Greenberg, speaking for the Sunset Beach Commercial Owners Assn., charged that the county plan unfairly favors private homeowners over business owners. Greenberg said the county plan should be required to do more to make Pacific Coast Highway more attractive in the area.

But Phyllis Maywhort, speaking for the Sunset Beach Community Assn., which she said represents both residential and commercial landowners, urged the Coastal Commission to accept the county’s land-use plan. She charged that Greenberg’s group only represents “a minority of landowners.”