HUNTINGTON BEACH : Panel to Study Ways to Preserve Wetlands

A special City Council-appointed committee will search for money to buy, restore or preserve all 1,700 acres of the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve.

The council Monday unanimously authorized the creation of the committee, which will look at alternatives to developing the ecologically sensitive wetlands and the land next to it.

City Councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson, who is expected to chair the panel, said she would not rule out some type of housing development in the area, but called “4,800 homes . . . way too many.” The Koll Co., which has rights to develop private land around the reserve, has plans pending before the city to build 4,884 homes there.

Moulton-Patterson described Bolsa Chica as “the single most important issue before the City Council.”

It’s a good time for local officials to study alternatives because hearings on revisions to the project’s draft environmental impact report aren’t scheduled in the city until fall, she said.

In the interim, the city and its committee can discuss funding and preservation of the land with representatives of the Clinton Administration and U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, she said.

Lucy Dunn, senior vice president of the Koll Co., said Tuesday that her company has done extensive research into state and federal grants but hadn’t been contacted about the formation of the new committee.

“We’re available to answer (the committee’s) questions. “I hope they are not reinventing the wheel,” Dunn said.

Councilman David Sullivan said he believes the city can get a number of grants from federal, state and private sources to help acquire Bolsa Chica. Residents might consider a “bond issue to buy the rest of the property,” he said.

Moulton-Patterson said one of the committee’s tasks would be to get a precise figure for the purchase of the land, which could be more than $110 million for all 1,700 acres.

CoOp, a citizen committee, wants to limit development to 1,000 new homes, while the Bolsa Chica Land Trust wants to acquire the land and ban construction.

Flossie Horgan, who heads the land trust, said the formation of a committee to study Bolsa Chica’s future reflects the fact that a “a new day is dawning” for the City Council. For the first time, a plan for preservation of the entire Bolsa Chica reserve is vying with development alternatives, she said.