On the Beach : Development: Residents of a private little paradise hope that granting access to the public will foil a developer’s plans to build possibly 17 homes.

For years, residents of the bluffs above Malibu’s private Lechuza Beach have sought to protect their hidden piece of ocean paradise against the onslaught of outsiders.

Gates leading into the exclusive community, four miles northwest of Point Dume, keep out unwanted motorists. And, until recently, guards posted at a pedestrian gate turned back the occasional hiker who tried to get to the beach from Pacific Coast Highway.

Now, that’s about to change.

In a bid to persuade the California Coastal Commission, meeting today in Marina del Rey, to reject a developer’s plans to build the first of possibly 17 homes along the pristine beach, the neighbors will tell commissioners that they have opened their gates--if not their hearts--to outsiders.

The guards have already disappeared. Not only are beach-goers welcomed, but since June, they’ve been asked to sign a petition stapled to a wooden stand stuck in the sand that asks the Coastal Commission to reject the developer’s plans.

So far, more than 500 people have signed.

“Our goal is to save the beach,” said Charles Kennedy, who has owned a home on the bluff overlooking Lechuza since 1967. “If making the beach more accessible to the public will help prevent it from being ruined by development, that’s something we’re willing to do.”

The commission has rejected two previous attempts by developer Norman Haynie to build houses on the beach, saying that they would block public access and that sewage from the development could damage sensitive marine life and kelp beds offshore.

But Haynie has offered to donate part of his property to the state for beach access and to revise his plans in other ways, and several commissioners have hinted that they might have difficulty opposing him in the future unless the neighbors make an overture of their own to provide public access.

Haynie hopes to get three houses approved today. His critics say that if he is successful, it would open the floodgates for developing all 17 parcels he acquired in January from the Adamson Cos. Haynie had served as the Adamson Cos.’ agent.

“It’s a domino effect,” said one neighbor, who asked not to be identified. “Once he gets his foot in the door, you will see houses all along that beach.”

Interviewed on the beach, Tony Giordano, vice president of the Malibu-Encinal Homeowners Assn., added, “If he gets his way, there will be no beach to protect. Where I’m standing now would be under a house.”

In June, several Lechuza Beach residents offered Haynie $2.1 million for his property--which they say is slightly more than what he and his associates paid for it. Haynie rejected the offer.

In an interview, Haynie said that $2.1 million “was not even close” to what he and his associates paid for it. He declined to reveal the purchase price, but said the property had been appraised for “in excess of $20 million.”

“If they want to own the lots, they can do so by purchasing them for their fair market value,” he said.

He accused Lechuza Beach residents of “trying to steal the beach from its rightful owners,” saying that “they want to be able to go before the Coastal Commission and say they’ve offered to buy the property so the commission doesn’t feel it has to approve a project.”

An attorney for the residents, however, said the offer will stand until Sept. 30, regardless of what the Coastal Commission decides today. “The residents making the offer have made it clear that if Mr. Haynie were to accept, they will deed-restrict the property to ensure that nothing is ever built there,” said Robert Philibosian, the attorney.

As it did with his previous proposals, the Coastal Commission staff has recommended that the latest plan be rejected. But worried residents note that commission opposition to Haynie’s proposals has lessened. The vote was 10 to 2 in January. It was 7 to 5 in April.

The argument over whether development should be allowed on the beach has long centered on a controversy in identifying the mean high-tide line. By law, all land seaward of that mark is public property.

Lechuza Beach was last surveyed in 1928, and opponents of Haynie’s plans say the high-tide mark that the survey shows is now 25 feet out to sea. They have long insisted that a new survey would make much of the land on which Haynie proposes to build public property.

Both the residents and the Coastal Commission have asked the state Lands Commission to take another look at the beach, but state officials have said money is not available for a new survey.

Haynie wants to rebuild part of Sea Level Drive, which was washed out along with some beachfront cottages by a storm in the 1930s, and construct a seawall to protect against future storms.

Haynie said that engineers have assured him that any homes built on the beach will be safe. He told the Malibu City Council in April that houses built there “will not be destroyed by a wave unless it’s a tsunami. “