A Rebirth for Hellman Wetlands? : Latest Plan Has Fewest Homes but Still Faces a Lawsuit and Other Hurdles

All that’s left of the sprawling saltwater marsh and rolling grasslands on the Hellman Ranch property in Seal Beach is a 196-acre triangle of weed-choked pasture and worn-out wetlands where birds nest in abandoned light fixtures.

Once a vast marsh that dominated the area less than a century ago, the land has been transformed into its state of blight by oil production, cattle ranching and the dumping of thousands of tons of San Gabriel River dredge.

“Mother Nature is nowhere to be found on this site,” said Dave Bartlett, a land use consultant for the Hellman family, which has owned the land since the 1880s.

After seeing three projects proposed by other developers die amid controversy, the Hellmans have devised their own plan for the old ranch: 70 luxury homes on Seal Beach Boulevard overlooking a professional-caliber 18-hole golf course and a 28-acre saltwater marsh to replace an equal amount of wetlands that would be destroyed during construction.

Nobody denies that what the Hellmans propose is better than previous plans and a cosmetic improvement, but the project still faces stiff opposition on multiple fronts.

Preservationists and Native Americans say the plan will destroy priceless evidence of prehistoric civilizations and are suing to stop the project.

Although that lawsuit could derail the project, the June Coastal Commission hearing concerns Hellman supporters more.

Coastal commissioners are worried the Hellmans’ insistence that they replace only 1 acre of wetlands for every acre they build on will come back to haunt them when other developers want to build on the state’s vanishing wetlands. The commission normally requires developers to replace up to four times the wetlands destroyed by development.

If the acre-for-acre deal is made, “that’s what it’s going to be for every other project,” Coastal Commission Vice Chairwoman Sara Wan said at an April hearing on the proposal.

But more wetlands would leave the Hellmans with a 14-hole golf course--an unacceptable prospect, they say.

Bartlett and other supporters of the project say they are setting aside an adequate amount of wetlands: 28 acres now, an addition 16 acres for more wetlands when oil pumps dry up in a couple of decades, and another seven acres of freshwater marsh within the golf course.

Besides, they add, the land is so damaged that it should be exempt from more strenuous wetlands restoration rules.

A judge will hear the case May 15.

According to state reports, the remaining 27 acres of wetlands on Hellman Ranch are scattered, “severely degraded” and connected to crucial tidal flushing only by a culvert. That tenuous connection to the ocean means a more ambitious wetlands restoration would fail, Bartlett contends.

‘Historic Wetlands’

But Robert James, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the difficulty in rebuilding any wetlands is one reason his agency advised the Coastal Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers--which also must approve the project--to demand more wetlands restoration. It’s possible not all of the rebuilt wetlands will survive, so it’s necessary to build more up front, he said.

Like some of the Coastal Commission members, James also has reservations about the impact of a golf course on the environment. Even the loss of tall grass can cause havoc.

“Open space would be created by a golf course, but it’s not really biological open space,” James said. Owls and hawks would lose a crucial hunting ground when the small mammals they hunt are forced out by the golf course, he said.

Seal Beach officials, who spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting previous developers’ efforts to put even more houses on the land, say the Hellmans’ proposal is as good as it gets.

“A ‘more wetlands’ scenario is not in the offering,” said Gwen Forsythe, the councilwoman who has shepherded the project through three years of challenges. “This proposal has been fine-tuned for years. We know exactly where we are and exactly what we can get. What the Coastal Commission has to understand is if we don’t get the exact acreage on the golf course, we don’t have a proposal.”

To environmentalists, that’s not such a bad outcome.

“The only way this property is ever going to be restored is by denying this project,” said Mark Massara of the Sierra Club. “A golf course and 70 homes will foreclose any future opportunity to restore these historic wetlands.”

Forsythe said environmentalists can dream all they want. She said she was unable to find grant money to restore the Hellman land without a developer, mainly because it would be too costly to restore proper tidal flushing to the land.

“The bottom line was: This is not worth the bucks,” she said. “I’d love to look at it with rose-colored glasses and have flowers and birds and trees, but the reality is that’s physically and hydraulically impossible.”

Native Americans and archeologists say that in the rush to support this project, Seal Beach officials are ignoring priceless relics and ancient remains buried on the land. In the suit, they say Seal Beach violated a state historic preservation law by failing to draft plans to safeguard Native American artifacts on the land.

“With wetlands, you can destroy them in one place as long as you replace them,” said Susan Brandt-Hawley, the preservationists’ attorney. “With archeological sites, you can’t just move it. You can’t replace it. It’s gone.”

The city plans to look at the sites when the project clears all state and federal hurdles, but it already has determined that the value of the Hellman development exceeds the value of any relics. Attorneys for Seal Beach say the city satisfied the law by acknowledging “the project’s impact on these sites will be significant and unavoidable.”

Bartlett won’t comment on the lawsuit, other than to say he thinks the city will prevail. His sole concern is getting Coastal Commission approval for the development.

“We have an opportunity to produce a good, environmentally balanced project that is good for this community,” Barlett said. “It’s just a matter of how do we get there and make sure we don’t set any precedents. And I don’t think we’re setting any precedents.”

He runs over his selling points: Seal Beach gets a 10-acre park, nature trials and educational programs; a fenced-off property is opened to the public; and walls of trees will screen the exposed oil pumps.

It’s that, Bartlett says, or “we just keep pumping oil.”

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Another Plan for the Property

Plans to develop the Hellman Ranch property have undergone a major evolution. The latest incarnation would include just 70 single-family homes--an earlier plan included 1,000 single- and multifamily dwellings--and wetlands restoration. A golf course and its clubhouse facility would comprise nearly half the development.

Hellman Property Saga

In the 1880s, when the Hellman family took control of the property, the wetlands at the end of the San Gabriel River spanned thousands of acres. But a century has transformed the land into a weed-choked, 196-acre triangle pocked with oil pumps, power lines and crippled fragments of severely degraded wetlands. A history of the Hellman Ranch:

1922: First oil pumps installed. Wetlands filled to make roads for oil trucks.

1930-34: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dumps tons of dirt on the property during rerouting and channeling of San Gabriel River. Marsh recedes as canals are built to control water.

1961-63: More fill and dredge dumped on property during construction of power-plant cooling channel. Dumping continues into the mid-1970s.

May 1981: Ponderosa Homes proposes 1,000-home development and 100 acres of wetland restoration on the property; Seal Beach City Council approves.

January 1982: California Department of Fish and Game finds 23 of remaining 25 acres of wetlands on the property are “severely degraded.”

1984: Ponderosa Homes withdraws proposal.

1986: Mola Development Corp. proposes 773-unit residential development.

1986-89: Mola’s proposal stirs controversy during public hearings. Council approves plan for 355 homes in October 1989.

January 1990: Coastal Commission grants Mola permit to build 329 homes and restore 36.8 acres of wetlands.

March 1990: Judge rescinds City Council approval of Mola project because city’s housing plan is outdated.

May 1990: Residents filibuster council meeting to ensure pro-Mola majority will not get final say on development.

June 1990: New council overturns earlier approval of Mola project. Mola sues and vows to put issue to citywide vote.

June 1991: Seal Beach voters reject Mola’s well-financed bid for ballot approval.

November 1996: City officials scrap proposal for detailed study of archeological significance of several sites on property.

March 1997: Several officials--including then-Seal Beach Mayor Gwen Forsythe--reveal they received death threats connected to development projects; FBI investigates.

October 1997: Council approves Hellman family proposal to build 70 luxury homes, 18-hole golf course and 27 acres of salt- and freshwater wetlands. Preservationists accuse city of ignoring archeological concerns about the project; file lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court.

November 1997: California Supreme Court refuses to hear Mola lawsuit against Seal Beach.

April 1998: Despite support from Seal Beach residents, Coastal Commission delays Hellman proposal for further study, decides to consider project again in June.

Sources: Hellman Properties, California Coastal Commission, Times reports; Researched by PHIL DAVIS / For The Times