Judge Sends Bolsa Chica Plan Back for Review

To the delight of environmentalists and the dismay of a major developer, a Superior Court judge Friday said she will send the controversial Bolsa Chica housing project back to the state Coastal Commission, which could delay construction a year or longer.

Judge Judith McConnell concluded that the commission failed to follow the state Coastal Act when it voted last October to allow 1,235 new homes to be built on a mesa flanking the well-known Bolsa Chica wetlands near Huntington Beach.

Commissioners did not abide by the act’s requirements for public participation, McConnell said in her tentative ruling Friday.

Developer Koll Real Estate Group, which planned to break ground in just a few months, vowed to appeal the decision.

“I’m going to do everything possible to move this project quickly,” said Senior Vice President Lucy Dunn, who called the ruling “a very odd decision.”

Friday’s developments appear to leave the Bolsa Chica project in a kind of legal limbo, with no one able to say immediately if the project’s future will be decided by coastal commissioners, the state Court of Appeal or other legal channels.

Peter Douglas, the commission’s executive director, expressed surprise at the ruling, saying he thought his agency had followed the law. He said the commission at its March meeting in Monterey will discuss if it too will appeal.

“It’s a very significant decision, no question,” Douglas said, predicting legal ramifications could delay construction for a year or longer. “It may substantially delay it, because it really does put the permit process on hold.”

This marks the second time the court has sent the Bolsa Chica project back to the commission, which Douglas said could be unprecedented. “I can’t recall any case where [a project] has been sent back twice,” he said.

With major elections looming this fall, the 12-member commission could change substantially by next year, since four commissioners are chosen by the governor, four by the Assembly speaker and four by the Senate Rules Committee.

The ruling drew applause and sighs of relief from environmentalists who hope to preserve the mesa, a stretch of high, open land alongside one of Southern California’s largest and most ecologically fragile wetlands.

“I’m exuberant, exuberant about it,” said Marge Allen, 70, of Huntington Beach, who said she has fought against Bolsa Chica development for nearly 20 years.

“I could see myself out there lying in front of machinery this spring. I’ve got a reprieve now, and so does the mesa,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “Any time we have another six months,” she said, “something can happen.”

Some project critics hope to devise an eleventh-hour plan to purchase the mesa. But Koll officials say they want to develop the land, not sell it. And Dunn said she is mystified by McConnell’s action.

She questioned why McConnell suggested the commission acted improperly in October when an earlier ruling indicated the judge approved of that action.

“Her ruling made no sense to us,” Dunn said.

In a Friday evening statement, Koll officials said the public has had ample opportunity to comment over the 25-year planning process for Bolsa Chica development. They said they are unable to predict how long the project will be delayed. Dunn said she hopes the Court of Appeal can hear the case in late 1998 or early 1999, and she plans to explore other means to get an earlier hearing date.

McConnell’s tentative ruling was posted at the courtroom entrance before the 1:30 hearing began. She then heard arguments from attorneys for the commission, Orange County and Koll but appeared unswayed.

“Basically, the guillotine has been pulled back up,” said Phil Seymour, an environmental attorney representing the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, the Sierra Club and other project critics.

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The Friday hearing stemmed from an environmental lawsuit claiming the state Coastal Commission erred in its January 1996 vote to approve a 3,300-home project.

Environmentalists rejoiced last spring when McConnell, ruling on that lawsuit, concluded the Coastal Commission did err on two points. In response, commissioners approved a scaled-down 1,235-home project in October, voting 11 to 0, with one abstention.

That hearing infuriated some environmentalists, who said the commission unfairly reined in public comment, allowing people to speak on only the two issues McConnell had criticized--not on the entire project.

McConnell agreed Friday, saying that her earlier ruling was intended to send the entire matter back to the commission.

Based on legal precedent, any case returned to the panel should be treated as a new submission, “and afforded the same public participation and procedural safeguards as an original submission,” she wrote.

Douglas said Friday, “We were operating in good faith based on what we thought the judge had ruled. . . . Had we known this then, we would have looked at the whole thing.”

Along with the legal machinations, talks continue in California and in Washington about whether the mesa could be purchased and preserved.

Just a year ago, Koll sold most of the wetlands to the state for $25 million, and they are slated to become a major public wildlife preserve.

Environmentalists approached Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to report back on potential sellers, the appraisal and acquisition costs and any opportunities for public-private partnerships for a project. That report is currently being completed.