PORT HUENEME : Homeowners’ Suit Threatens RV Resort

A lawsuit charging that Port Hueneme officials failed to fully assess the environmental effects of building a recreational vehicle resort on city-owned beach property has threatened to bring the project to a temporary halt.

The Superior Court suit, filed Wednesday by the Sierra Club and the Surfside III Condominium Homeowner Assn., asks the court to invalidate approvals for the project issued by the City Council last month and to order an expanded environmental study.

If the court agrees, that could temporarily halt the city’s plan to build the 10-acre park at the south end of Hueneme Beach, said Paul J. Neibergs, the Santa Barbara attorney representing the Sierra Club and the homeowners.

“Until an adequate environmental review is performed, the project couldn’t go forward,” Neibergs said.

The city’s attorney, Don G. Kircher, said Port Hueneme would oppose the action, but that he had not yet had time to analyze the petition in detail. City officials were not surprised by the filing, he said.

“It’s been threatened for a long time and it’s arrived,” Kircher said.

The suit says an environmental analysis of the project does not adequately assess traffic circulation, flooding potential and damage to wildlife habitats. It also alleges that other approvals given by the City Council in conjunction with the resort open the way for unchecked development in coastal areas throughout the city.

A hearing on the matter probably will not occur until after the Coastal Commission and the State Lands Commission, which also must give approval to the project, have completed their review, said Neibergs. That won’t happen for about four months, officials said.

David Kanter, vice president of the Surfside homeowners association, whose members may have their ocean views blocked by the development, was blunt about the association’s goal in filing the lawsuit.

“We want this project killed and we will go all the way to see that this is done,” Kanter said.