To Marsh’s Neighbors, Koll’s Plan Is All Wet

It was a gorgeous day at the Bolsa Chica wetlands Friday, one of the most glorious days in recent memory, but you never would have known it from the faces of local residents.

As word went out that the California Coastal Commission had cleared the way for 3,300 new houses in this environmentally sensitive area, homeowners living hard by the threatened wetlands seemed stricken.

With temperatures nipping at 90 and a buttery sunshine lapping the horizon, many had come home early from work to ride, run or ramble through the acres of wild country.

A light breeze fanned the tall grass, and roses turned their heads to face the sun, as if startled by its sudden, unseasonal warmth.

In many ways, the scene was idyllic--yet no one seemed carefree.

“The whole thing stinks,” said Laikie Sperling, a longtime resident soaking up the view from her second-story porch. “I knew they were going to win.”

By “they,” she meant Koll Real Estate Group, which might face court challenges over how much of the wetlands can be developed. Still, with this major government hurdle cleared, few residents held out any hope that Koll could be stopped.

“That’s my frontyard,” said a dismayed Julie Babinsky, who lives across the street from Bolsa Chica.

Babinsky’s 11-year-old son, Jake, bemoaned the loss of one precious resource that no one ever seems to mention: 20-year-old bicycle ramps, molded and smoothed in the wetlands dirt by generation after generation of kids.

“It’s not like fighting City Hall,” said Susan Harris, who bought a house across from the wetlands 13 years ago, but who now thinks it’s time to go. “City Hall was on our side.”

Like many of her neighbors, Harris said she was especially disheartened by the perceived failure of her elected officials to prevent development.

“People in this city went to a lot of trouble to get a City Council that expressed and did what we wanted,” Harris said. “Then Koll pulled out and went to the Board of Supervisors,” which approved the plan last year.

For the supervisors, residents reserved their saltiest, most unrepeatable language.

“There’s graft and corruption as far as I’m concerned,” Sperling said.

Like a student who has studied hard for a test, Sperling recited from rote a few more fears and conspiracy theories to which Koll’s development has given rise among residents:

* The company doesn’t have the money to do any of the ecological cleanup it has promised.

* Huntington Beach doesn’t need more housing, because it can’t fill the houses and condominiums already built.

* Birds, rabbits and other wildlife in the area will not survive development.

“You just can’t believe this,” said Lee Specht, who bought one of the first houses to be built in the area, 22 years ago. “Heron, egrets, they feed over there.”

As he spoke, a large, fat hawk watched him warily from a telephone wire across the street.

Moments later, Bob Flores and Marlene Perreira trotted past on their quarter-horses, which they keep stabled a mile down the road, beside the wetlands.

“We’ve been here about six years,” Flores said, “and we’ve been fighting this” development.

Perreira said the horse beneath her had more sense than Koll officials, because the horse knows the wetlands are off-limits.

The ground is too soft, Perreira said, and simply unfit for more than a fleeting visit.

“If people knew what they were moving into,” Flores said, shaking his head. “This wet, soft ground underneath us. There’s no way they can pack it enough to keep it from sinking.”

But money talks, he said, and all else must canter away.

“Tell them,” Perreira said, giving her horse a gentle kick in the ribs, “they’re destroying history.”