Judge Blocks Coastline Project Over State Law : Development: The Ocean Trails plan does not meet low- and moderate-income housing provisions. Rancho Palos Verdes officials will review the issue.

Plans for a golf course and residential development on a stretch of Rancho Palos Verdes coastline hit a snag this week when a judge ruled that the proposed project failed to provide for the portion of moderate- and low-income housing required by state law.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien stopped short of deciding whether the project violated state environmental guidelines or failed to provide enough public access to beaches.

Still, a coalition of environmental groups that challenged the project on those grounds in a lawsuit filed in January praised the decision. They called on the City Council, which approved the proposed development in December, to use the judge’s ruling as an opportunity to reconsider not only the project’s housing provisions, but also its environmental and public access aspects.

“It answers one of the questions but leaves others undecided,” Andrew Sargent, president of the Coastal Conservation Coalition, said of the ruling. “We’re hopeful (that the City Council) will comply with this order and (also) address other deficiencies in the project.”

Rancho Palos Verdes City Attorney Carol Lynch said the city has not decided whether to challenge O’Brien’s decision. State law requires that a portion of new developments be low- or moderate-income housing.

“(The housing issue) will come to the city for further review,” she said.

The developers of the Ocean Trails project, Barry Hon and the Zuckerman family, could not be reached for comment.

Ocean Trails, which includes an 18-hole golf course and 83 luxury homes, is expected to generate about $500,000 annually in local tax money, a major boost in a city whose revenues plunged after the Marineland aquatic park closed in early 1987. The project would be built on a 261-acre site on the ocean side of Palos Verdes Drive South.

The City Council originally approved the development in May, 1992. But the California Coastal Commission overturned the city permit for the project in August, and the project was rejected.

At the time, developers were told that they had to dedicate more open space to public use and provide added public access to the beach. Project managers eliminated two of three bluff-top golf holes and made other modifications. The changes have since helped win city and Coastal Commission approval.

Much of the continuing controversy involves the golf course, which is laid out along bluff tops and promises to rival Pebble Beach in Monterey County. Conservationists want a wide strip of land along the bluff left open, but project officials say it would eliminate six holes of golf and their ability to sell the project.

Ocean Trails also includes a 35-acre preserve for the California gnatcatcher, which has been designated as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Federal authorities must approve the plan to preserve the habitat for the bird before the project can be built.

Adverse Decision A judge ruled that a golf course and subdivision proposed for Rancho Palos Verdes does not provide for enough moderate and low-income housing.