Orange County OKs Controversial 3,300-Home Project : Development: The supervisors say revenues from the Bolsa Chica development are needed. Environmentalists are outraged.

Acting in the face of personal attacks, calls for their resignations and threats of lawsuits, the Orange County Board of Supervisors Wednesday capped an eight-hour public hearing by unanimously approving a plan to build as many as 3,300 homes in and around the Bolsa Chica wetlands at Huntington Beach.

“Bolsa Chica’s time has finally come,” said Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, urging approval of the Koll Real Estate Group’s plan. “This county needs economic development, particularly given the events of the past two weeks. Large projects like Bolsa Chica need to be brought on line as quickly as possible.”

Ralph Bauer, a Huntington Beach councilman who opposes the project on environmental and economic grounds, disputed that view. “They crammed this down our throat,” he said. “The board just went through the largest municipal bankruptcy in history and apparently has learned nothing from it.”

Representatives from the city of Huntington Beach and its school districts vowed to fight the project in court, saying it would cost tens of millions of dollars in services.

The proposal still must receive approval from the California Coastal Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as a final ratification from the supervisors, which could come next summer.

Under the plan as approved, the Koll company would build the homes on 1,600 acres of the ecologically sensitive area along the Pacific Coast Highway near Huntington Beach. In exchange for permission to build the houses, the company would spend about $48 million to restore 950 acres of degraded wetlands--much of it now used for oil production--by, among other things, constructing a functioning tidal inlet connecting the marsh to the ocean.

Bolsa Chica, the largest stretch of unprotected coastal marshland south of San Francisco, forms a natural habitat for dozens of species of fish, mammals and birds, including at least five types of birds that are endangered species.

It is the ecological importance of the wetlands that, for years, has attracted the passionate devotion of environmentalists, who fear that development will ruin the sensitive ecosystem. The development plan has also been opposed by Native Americans who say that it would disturb a sacred burial ground used by their ancestors, and by history buffs who object to the removal of a World War II artillery bunker from the site.

Many of the critical comments on Wednesday, however, centered on economic issues, apparently brought to the fore by the county’s financial crisis.

“I had assumed this meeting would be postponed until the hemorrhage of public funds could be stopped,” said Connie Boardman, president of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, which has led opposition to the project. “Why in the face of the worst financial crisis in Orange County history are you using your time to vote on this?”

Gorden LaBedz, a spokesman for the Surfrider Foundation, which also opposes the project, was even more strident. “I’m pretty sick of you,” he told the supervisors. “We’re calling for your resignation and the cancellation of this hearing. You have disgraced us and you are about to disgrace the Bolsa Chica.”

County officials, however, say that the Koll development, far from being a drain on the county’s beleaguered economy, could only improve its financial picture.

“I don’t believe the project will be affected by the economic situation,” said Tom Mathews, county planning director. “It’s a private development. There is an impact on the general fund, but it will be mitigated by the developer.”

A fiscal impact report prepared by an outside consultant for the county predicts that the project will drain about $437,000 a year from the county’s general fund. However, that deficit would be more than offset by developer’s fees, as well as $54 million in increased state and local tax revenues during the estimated 15 years it would take to complete the project. About $25.1 million of that would go directly to the county. Once the project is completed, the report says, Southern California would reap added sales and real estate tax revenues of about $12.5 million a year.

And, the report says, the project would further bolster the region’s economy by creating more than 10,000 jobs during the construction period and about 4,000 permanent jobs.

“The fiscal impacts of the project must be taken in a context with the benefits,” Mathews said.

That was not enough to satisfy Huntington Beach city and school district officials, who argued Wednesday that the project would impose unreasonable costs by forcing the county to supply thousands of new residents with services such as police and fire protection, as well as education for their children in local schools.

“This is financially irresponsible,” Bauer said. “By this action, the board has saddled the people of Huntington Beach with upfront costs of $60 million and $5 million annually in perpetuity.”

Marshall Krupp, a consultant representing the Huntington Beach Unified School District and the Huntington Beach Union School district, had a similar complaint. “This has been an extremely frustrating process for the school districts,” he said, explaining that the Bolsa Chica development would ultimately add an estimated 1,195 new students to the two districts at an annual cost of about $34.5 million.

Mathews, however, downplayed such concerns. Many of the city’s costs, he said, would be offset by economic benefits such as tax revenues and increased spending. Other mitigating factors, he promised, would be worked out later.