SEAL BEACH : High Court Won’t Hear Mola Request

The California Supreme Court has decided not to hear a request by the Mola Development Corp. for reinstatement of its 149-acre project on the Hellman Ranch property.

The company hoped that with Supreme Court backing it would be able to move forward on its plans to build 329 homes on 41 acres of wetlands, leaving 26 acres of parkland.

This is the second blow to the project in five months.

The state’s 4th District Court of Appeal last November denied Mola’s bid to overturn the City Council’s rejection of the project.

“We are assuming that they are no longer interested in building” on the Hellman Ranch property, said Lee Whittenberg, Seal Beach’s director of community services.

The council originally approved Mola’s project in 1989. But that decision was overturned by a Superior Court commissioner because the city’s housing plan was out of date.

A council with new members revisited the project later and voted against it.

Yet to be decided in Mola’s $11-million lawsuit against Seal Beach is whether the city must repay millions of dollars that the firm poured into the project over the last few years.

According to the lawsuit, the council used an invalid basis for rejecting the project. The council said it feared seismic risks and seismic instability on the site, which is along the Newport-Inglewood Fault.