Environmentalists Win Battle Against County : * Development: In upholding lawsuit, a judge orders the formation of a review board for projects in ecologically fragile areas. He calls the county’s approach toward a 1986 coastal policy ‘arbitrary and capricious.’

In a decision environmentalists hail as an important victory, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge upheld a lawsuit demanding that the County Board of Supervisors set up a review board for developments in environmentally fragile areas in the Malibu coastal region.

The lawsuit was filed by the Sierra Club and the Corral Canyon Homeowners Assn. two years ago, an offshoot of their battle against a proposal to develop 339 acres of entertainer Bob Hope’s land in Corral Canyon as a private resort and residential area.

Developer Sun Pacific Properties received approval from Los Angeles County supervisors in 1989 for the controversial canyon project, which would have included an 18-hole golf course, a 52,000-square-foot clubhouse, 60 homes, six tennis courts, two restaurants and a swimming pool.

The California Coastal Commission rejected a scaled-down version of the development a year later, and the state is attempting to acquire the property for parkland as part of a complicated land swap.

The Sierra Club argued that in approving the project, county supervisors disregarded a 1986 policy adopted by the California Coastal Commission. The policy required the county to set up an Environmental Review Board (ERB) for projects in environmentally sensitive areas such as oak woods, watersheds, and wildlife corridors. The Board of Supervisors never established the group. In his ruling last Thursday, Judge Ronald M. Sohigian called the county’s approach toward the 1986 policy “arbitrary and capricious.”

Sohigian ordered the county to set up a review board made up of professionals with expertise in resource management to make sure that developments conform to the local coastal program. While the board is advisory only, Sohigian ruled that the county can approve projects “only upon a finding that the project is consistent with (the local coastal plan).”

The judge demanded that the county comply with his order within 160 days.

“This is a loud and clear message that our courts will not tolerate inaction regarding coastal plan policies designed to project fragile environmental resources,” said Frank Angel, the attorney for the Sierra Club.

County officials and environmentalists agree that the ruling means that all future development projects in affected areas cannot proceed until an ERB is assembled. One of the projects likely to be affected is Soka University’s controversial plan to expand its campus in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The newly incorporated city of Malibu must also run development projects within its borders past the ERB, but that will not be a problem, since council members have long fought for the review board. “The county dragged its feet for over four years. The county just liked to approve everything that came through,” said Councilwoman Missy Zeitsoff. “Now they will have to undergo much more scrutiny.”

Ron Hoffman, supervising regional planner for the department of regional planning for the county, said the county had not previously formed an ERB because of lack of time and money. “We didn’t forget it, we just have only so much time and money,” he said.

Hoffman said, however, that the county plans to put together a group to comply as quickly as possible with last week’s ruling. The board, he said, will consist of ecologists, biologists, botanists, and other experts in natural resources. “It will result in projects getting reviewed in a thorough fashion and create a more standardized procedure for looking at developments in the coastal areas,” Hoffman said.