Opposing Sides Brace for Vote on Hellman Project

With a final showdown a day away, supporters and critics of the Hellman Ranch project in Seal Beach are engaged in a fierce tug of war over whether state coastal law allows the filling of wetlands to build a golf course.

After months of delays, the California Coastal Commission is due to vote on the project Wednesday at a meeting in Eureka in northwest California, 700 miles away from the 196-acre parcel of land in Seal Beach that has spawned one of the angriest recent debates on how to balance coastal development with wetlands preservation.

The developer’s amending of the project two weeks ago has also drawn criticism, because the changes came after local public meetings and four days after the commission staff issued its recommendations.

Even the meeting’s setting has sparked controversy, with some critics paying $260 each to fly to Eureka and others saying they have been shut out of the process because of cost and distance.

“They’re going to push it through in a place where no eyes are going to be falling on it,” said Susan Jordan, a spokeswoman for the League for Coastal Protection, an environmental group.

But Dave Bartlett, representing developer Hellman Properties LLC, said the public has had ample chance to review the project at earlier meetings in Southern California.

“This is not a due-process issue. The information has been out there,” Bartlett said Monday. “The public has not been deprived of reviewing it.”

Hellman Properties hopes to build a gated community of 70 luxury homes and an 18-hole golf course on the Hellman Ranch parcel, along with open space and restored or newly created wetlands.

Under a plan modified Aug. 25, the developer would fill 18 acres of the 27 wetland acres at the site. In turn, Hellman would restore the remaining nine acres and create another 30 acres of wetlands.

Earlier plans called for a project containing 28 acres of wetlands. The extra 11 acres in the revised plan would come from two areas: converting 6.8 acres of fresh-water ponds within the golf course to salt water, and freeing up four acres by moving mineral production facilities.

While Seal Beach officials strongly endorse the project, the Coastal Commission staff has concluded that filling wetlands to create a golf course is not allowed under the Coastal Act that controls development along the California coast.

The staff strongly criticized the Aug. 25 proposal for increasing wetlands acreage, writing that converting the freshwater areas to saltwater marsh is inadequate.

“This is because the 6.8 acres are divided among 6 ponds that . . . are intertwined in the middle of the golf course and thus subject to greater disturbance from human activity,” the staff wrote.

*

Environmentalists fighting the project, meanwhile, argue that coastal wetlands are too scarce in Southern California to be sacrificed for a golf course. They contend that a commission vote for the project will set a dangerous precedent for wetlands statewide.

As commissioners flew into Eureka on Monday, the verbal and paper battle continued.

“The Coastal Act provides the Commission the discretion to approve this restoration project,” Hellman Properties officials Jerry Tone and Dave Bartlett wrote in a last-minute appeal to commissioners, dated last Wednesday.

But Peter Douglas, the commission’s executive director, disagrees.

“Allowing a golf course to displace wetlands? Since a golf course is not a permitted use for a wetlands, certainly it would set precedent,” Douglas said Monday in Eureka.

Bartlett, in turn, called it “irresponsible” for Douglas to label such a decision a precedent.

He added that in reviews of earlier Hellman Ranch projects, the state Department of Fish and Game, the state Coastal Conservancy and the Coastal Commission all agreed that filling degraded and severely degraded wetlands could be done to allow restoration and create “significantly higher wildlife values.”

*

Steven Kaufmann, an attorney representing Seal Beach, agreed that the project would not be precedent-setting.

“It’s a unique enough property that it should stand on its own,” Kaufmann said. “And I firmly believe that the commission decides these cases on a case-by-case basis.”

The Hellman Ranch project has been plagued by delays and unexpected changes in course. The staff originally accepted the golf course but later called for it to be removed from the plan because it did not adhere to the Coastal Act.

The latest staff report, dated Aug. 21, recommends approving the 70-home project minus the golf course and with a long list of conditions.

Environmentalists are lambasting the Aug. 25 amendment from Hellman Properties, calling it a last-minute attempt to make changes without public review.

Most people probably don’t even know the project has been amended, said Jordan at the League for Coastal Protection. “It keeps the public from reviewing it, and I don’t think it’s inadvertent. I think it’s deliberate,” Jordan said.

“You look at the amendment, and it turns the Coastal Act upside down,” said Doug Korthof, a Seal Beach resident who along with his wife will spend their own funds to fly to Eureka to protest the project.

But Bartlett said the amendment simply documents changes that the developer had already discussed with the Coastal Commission staff. Most changes have been discussed in public hearings, he added.

Information about the Hellman Ranch project is available on the state Coastal Commission web page, https://www.ceres.ca.gov/coastalcomm/web