City Nearing Accord to Develop Oceanfront Land

City officials are close to reaching an agreement to develop the Headlands, the last vacant oceanfront property in south Orange County.

The City Council and the property’s owners are working out the details of a plan to put 130 homes and two small inns on the 121-acre site, with 62 acres set aside as public beach and parkland. Final approval for the $500-million project won’t come until after public hearings next spring.

About the only controversy coming out of the negotiations--the latest in what has been a contentious battle for more than a decade--is over secrecy shrouding the details. Environmentalists are grumbling that the city and the owners, Headlands Reserve LLC and M.H. Sherman Co., are not revealing enough information because of ongoing litigation.

What the city and the owners have released is a conceptual agreement that calls for two 50-room bed-and-breakfast inns, about 40,000 square feet of commercial space, about 130 residential lots, at least 62 acres of public open space and at least 13 acres of private open space. The public open space includes land providing habitat for the endangered Pacific pocket mouse and two other parks.

The plan represents a dramatic reduction in the scale of development. Originally, a 400-room hotel was planned along with 370 homes.

That plan, though approved by the City Council, was scrapped after a 1994 voter referendum overturned the council’s decision. Two lawsuits, several appeals and many alternate proposals followed.