Split Decisions for O.C. Coastal Developments

In a case closely watched by environmentalists and builders across the state, a divided California Coastal Commission agreed Tuesday to let a developer pave a small, trash-filled wetland area to build townhomes and duplexes off Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach.

Commissioners, voting 7 to 5 after a contentious four-hour public hearing, rejected staff recommendations to preserve the seven-tenths of an acre patch of brackish freshwater wetlands near Pacific Coast Highway and Beach Boulevard.

Environmentalists, the commission’s staff and some members of the agency’s governing board argued that the commission should retroactively apply a recent state appeals court ruling involving the Bolsa Chica wetlands that gives greater protection to sensitive coastal habitats. But the majority decided it would be unfair to stop a 23-acre project designed in good faith by a developer nearly two decades earlier.

Instead, the commission agreed to let the Robert Mayer Corp. improve and add to other wetlands nearby to mitigate the loss of the coastal parcel.

“Of course we’re pleased,” said Shawn K. Millbern, a senior vice president of Mayer Corp. “Certainly there is relief that there appears to be some finality to the issue. It’s been a lot of years getting to this point.”

But environmentalists--who turned out in force for the hearing at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, some wearing frog and turtle costumes to emphasize the need for amphibian habitat--decried the decision, saying it sets a terrible precedent.

“This is appalling,” said Susan Jordan, a board member with the League for Coastal Protection. “The Coastal Act was designed to prevent trade-offs. Just because a wetland is degraded doesn’t mean it should be filled.”

Marcia Hanscom, executive director of the Wetlands Action Network, said her group, along with the Sierra Club and the Orange County CoastKeeper, is considering legal action against the commission.

Since 95% of California’s historic coastal wetlands have been destroyed, what remains must be preserved and restored, Hanscom said.

Commissioners who voted for the project said fairness was the issue.

“People have to rely on us,” said Patrick Kruer, an alternate commissioner from San Diego. “They certainly followed the spirit of the Local Coastal Plan.”

The city of Huntington Beach formally approved the project in 1988, which called for bulldozing the debris-strewn wetlands as part of the project to develop the 23-acre site into 230 townhomes and duplexes.

In return, the developer was to compensate by creating one acre of wetland and restoring 1.2 acres of transitional habitat at the city’s Shipley Nature Center about four miles to the north. City officials and the developer said the mitigation effort, expected to cost about $500,000, was ecologically superior to preserving a patch of degraded wetlands fed largely by urban runoff.

On Tuesday, the commission ordered the developer to create a total 2.8 acres of wetlands, four times the area that would be filled. This would be in addition to the improving habitat at the nature center.

Dissenting commissioner Annette Rose, an alternate from Sausalito who voted against the project, said that accepting off-site mitigation for the destruction of a coastal wetland for housing set an “alarming precedent.”

This debate touches upon a larger issue affecting coastal projects throughout California. Development proposals often call for filling existing wetlands and restoring or creating substantially more wetlands elsewhere--a task that environmentalists say is difficult at best.

*

Coastal wetlands occur where ocean meets land, creating special habitats for plants such as coastal live oak, beach evening primrose, sea lavender, eel grass and a variety of sages. They also act as natural filters for urban runoff and feeding grounds for migratory birds.

Under the state’s landmark 1972 Coastal Act, wetlands can be filled for eight reasons, including wetlands restoration. For years developers have used this exception to justify projects that destroy wetlands on the construction site but finance restoration or creation of wetlands elsewhere--a move that environmentalists say ignores the act’s intent.

Environmentalists’ views were affirmed by an April 1999 state appeals court decision that prohibited destruction of wetlands and two “environmentally sensitive habitat areas” for residential development at Bolsa Chica, just north of the Mayer project.

That ruling, developers say, set a tighter standard that has stalled or altered projects along the California coast, including plans to turn nearly 18 acres of wetlands into a golf course at Seal Beach’s Hellman Ranch property.

The city’s approval of the Mayer project was challenged by two commission members shortly after the court ruling. In January, the panel’s staff released a strongly worded recommendation backing that challenge and urging a denial of the project’s coastal permit.

After the hearing, environmentalists staged a protest at the Queen Mary over an Assembly bill that would dilute the Bolsa Chica court decision and the Coastal Act.

The bill, AB2310--sponsored by Assembly members Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego), Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) and Thomas Calderon (D-Montebello)--would amend the Coastal Act and allow builders to destroy degraded wetlands and other sensitive habitats if superior habitats are created elsewhere as compensation. It also would broaden the reasons for destroying wetlands to include construction of recreational, residential, commercial or transportation projects.

The bill, which is scheduled to be heard in the Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee on April 24, has drawn widespread opposition from environmental groups, as well as the Coastal Commission and authors of the voter initiative that became the Coastal Act.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Wetland Preserved

The Coastal Commission on Tuesday narrowly voted to allow the paving over ofa a 0.7-acre wetland for housing.