Northwest : CYPRESS : Panel Hears Comment on Bolsa Chica Plans

Both critics and proponents of the proposed housing development at the Bolsa Chica wetlands got their next-to-last chance Monday to speak out on the controversial matter before the county Planning Commission acts on it.

“I ask you to be farsighted and postpone the development of Bolsa Chica,” Delores Haber, who lives near the Huntington Beach wetlands, told the commissioners meeting in Santa Ana. “Once it’s developed, it’s destroyed.”

Offering an entirely different view, Ron Saienni, a past president of the local Building Industry Assn., said that completion of the project would “significantly benefit the local community.”

The commission is scheduled to hold one more public hearing Nov. 30, at which it is expected to make a formal recommendation to the County Board of Supervisors regarding the project proposed by the Koll Real Estate Group. On the table is an environmental impact report containing three alternative proposals for the site: one for 2,500 homes, another for 3,200 homes and a third, added later, that would include 3,300 homes and a tidal inlet to help restore the ailing wetlands.

Monday’s hearing, the sixth of seven, was supposed to focus on the project’s financial impact on the county budget. But most speakers talked about philosophical issues.

“A jewel of this quality cannot be allowed to become just another housing project,” Juana Mueller, a member of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust which opposes the project, said regarding the wetlands. “Future generations will thank us for waking up in time to save it.”