City Vows to Push Ahead With RV Resort Plan : Zoning: Despite a negative Coastal Commission staff report, Port Hueneme leaders say there’s still a chance for approval.

The Port Hueneme City Council is vowing to pursue plans for a beachfront recreational vehicle resort despite an imminent recommendation by the California Coastal Commission staff to reject the project.

Staff analyst Merle Betz said he will advise the Coastal Commission in a report due out next week to turn down the city’s application to build the $2.3-million RV park on the south end of Hueneme Beach because it could threaten nearby nesting grounds for shore birds endangered with extinction.

While acknowledging that the recommendation will hurt the city’s chances to win Coastal Commission approval, council members James Daniels and Dorill B. Wright said that the commission may overrule the staff’s report, as it often does.

“I wouldn’t say it is the beginning of the end until the Coastal Commission makes its decision,” Daniels said. “We are going to continue to push this thing forward.”

Still, a Port Hueneme planner who has overseen the project for more than two years acknowledged that a rejection by the Coastal Commission would probably doom the city’s plans. Port Hueneme needs the state agency’s approval to change local coastal zoning to accommodate the 143-space RV resort.

“If we don’t get the Coastal Commission to approve it, we’re dead in the water,” said Tom Figg, the city’s director of community development.

The City Council approved the 10-acre RV park in April, over the protests of neighboring homeowners who argued it would bring increased traffic, noise and pollution to the area.

Environmentalists also have objected, saying an RV park will disturb the habitat of the least tern at nearby Ormond Beach. The homeowners and the Sierra Club have filed a lawsuit to stop the project.

The Coastal Commission’s Betz said he agrees that the RV resort could diminish adjacent nesting and foraging grounds, not only for the endangered least tern, but for several other protected bird species. He said the city proposal to install fences and patrol the nearby dunes would not be sufficient to protect the birds.

“We just don’t see there’s any way to recommend approval,” he said.

Wright said he is disappointed by Betz’s assessment, but refused to speculate on whether it will be a deciding factor in the Coastal Commission’s vote, expected Aug. 13. But a state official familiar with the Coastal Commission said it is a “tossup” on how the 12-member commission will vote.

“There is, if you will, a sponsor on the commission,” said the official, who requested anonymity. Wright, a strong supporter of the RV resort, is also a longtime Coastal Commission member.

“Counterbalancing that is a good amount of opposition to the project,” the state official said. “It’s been elevated above a local issue.”

Daniels and other city officials said Port Hueneme needs the RV park to help generate revenues for its general fund. City officials estimate fees collected at the municipally owned resort would pump $400,000 a year into Port Hueneme’s treasury.

“We are going to make every effort we can to persuade (the Coastal Commission) that we need this for revenue,” Daniels said. “We’ve got to do something to raise money so we can keep the city going.”

The attorney who filed the lawsuit for the Sierra Club said he was not surprised by the Coastal Commission’s staff report.

“We’ve been telling them there is a problem all along,” said Paul Neibergs. “The staff report, at the very least, will establish that these are very real issues.”

Neibergs has also sharply criticized the RV resort plans for restricting public access to the beach. Until the city came up with the RV park proposal, the site was designated to be developed as a children’s play area. That is the kind of public use encouraged by the California Coastal Act of 1976 to maximize public access.

“What the city wants to do is replace that with an RV resort that won’t even be open to campers,” Neibergs said. “It will be open only to tourists with high-priced recreational vehicles, and that is a violation of the Coastal Act.”

If the Coastal Commission approves the zoning change, the project must also receive approval from the State Lands Commission. A hearing before that board is several months away, city officials said.