HUNTINGTON BEACH : Bolsa Chica Plan Backed by Wieder

County Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder has urged the City Council to stand by a 1989 compromise plan that calls for residential development along the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve and restoration of 1,100 acres of wetlands.

Wieder and other top county officials appeared before the council Monday to lobby for the compromise plan.

Three weeks ago the council voted to form a subcommittee to look into the feasibility of buying, restoring or preserving all 1,700 acres of wetlands and surrounding property.

Wieder, whose district includes Huntington Beach, said wetlands restoration would cost “millions or billions of dollars.”

The agreement reached nearly four years ago by the Bolsa Chica Planning Coalition for a combination of restoration and development is the only means of financing the restoration project without using tax money, Wieder told the council.

“It is the only legitimate plan that’s received the OK from all the major agencies,” she said.

Under the 1989 compromise plan, the Koll Co. of Newport Beach proposes building more than 4,800 homes, mostly on the mesa just off Warner Avenue near Pacific Coast Highway.

In return, the Koll Co. has offered up to $30 million to restore 1,100 acres of wetlands.

“This is a hard offer to turn down,” Wieder said in an interview Tuesday. “Why buy it when you can get it for free?”

An environmental impact report on the Koll project was criticized by environmentalists for alleged inadequacies when it was made public last August.

The report is being revised and is expected to become available this summer.

Councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson, chairwoman of the three-member Bolsa Chica subcommittee, said her panel will merely gather information.

“We are going to be asked to vote on (the Koll plan), and we want to get all the information we can,” she said.

Moulton-Patterson has said previously that 4,800 homes currently planned for the area are “way too many.”

Moulton-Patterson said she plans to meet with California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and Clinton Administration representatives to go over possible funding sources for acquisition and restoration of the wetlands.

The Bolsa Chica Land Trust, formed with the goal of acquiring the wetlands and keeping it free from all development, endorsed the City Council action forming the subcommittee. Flossie Horgan, president of the group, had called formation of a subcommittee to study alternatives to residential development “a new day dawning.”

A rival faction, the Bolsa Chica Alliance, was formed about a month ago to support the current Bolsa Chica development and restoration plan.

The Bolsa Chica Planning Coalition, which approved the compromise plan on May 22, 1989, was made up of representatives from the city of Huntington Beach, Orange County, the State Lands Commission, the Amigos de Bolsa Chica environmental organization and the Signal Landmark Co., landowners at the time.

The Koll Co. is planning the development on behalf of the current landowner, Bolsa Chica Land Co.