Coastal Commission Approves Scaled-Down Bolsa Chica Plan

After a tense, hours-long showdown in one of California’s most acrimonious environmental battles, state coastal commissioners Thursday unanimously approved development of a tiny 60-acre portion of Bolsa Chica. The vote elated environmentalists, who stood and cheered loudly.

Developer Hearthside Homes had hoped to build on a much larger piece--183 acres above the Bolsa Chica wetlands, wedged between Huntington Beach and the sea. Coastal Commission staff had recommended limiting the development to help preserve fragile resources.

Hearthside officials had no comment after the vote. Earlier, top company official Lucy Dunn said, “We cannot physically build this project as proposed” by commission staff on the small acreage allotted.

Environmentalists said they were stunned by the unanimous vote, calling it a victory of grass-roots activism over politics.

“It was like a Frank Capra movie, ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’ ” said Marinka Horack of Huntington Beach, a Bolsa Chica Land Trust member. The land trust would like to buy the acreage and preserve it.

For three decades, the project has mobilized critics and catalyzed political and legal intrigue from Orange County to Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

Thursday was no exception.

Commissioners voted as 400 people jammed the meeting room in Los Angeles, most of them wearing anti-development stickers. Also on hand was a last-minute alternate commissioner dispatched by Gov. Gray Davis’ office, Tom Soto, as well as other top-ranking state officials.

Scores of people testified for and against the project. The Huntington Beach Council on Aging organized three busloads of supporters for the larger Hearthside project.

“We feel they should close this thing out,” said Harold Schechter, council president. “How many developers go through all this and land up with nothing?”

Preservation advocates view the land as a fragile pocket of natural coastline that has survived in an era when undeveloped Southern California oceanfront is a rarity.

Bolsa Chica--Spanish for “little pocket”--is a salt marsh teeming with rare shorebirds, speckled with oil pumps, flanked by a grassy mesa and ringed by suburbia, and it has evoked passionate loyalties.

The importance of the vote became increasingly clear as the all-day meeting progressed. Lobbyists for the developer and environmental groups huddled with key commissioners over breakfast oatmeal. Key players, including state Resources Secretary Mary Nichols, could be seen pressing cell phones to their ears in a nearby hallway. Predictions of the final vote fluctuated like Florida vote tallies, with environmental leaders estimating a losing six votes on their side in the morning, then as many as 10 to 12 by evening. The commission has 12 members, with eight appointed by the Legislature and four by the governor.

In its early hours, the debate also highlighted a rift between the Coastal Commission and other state officials. In a move that infuriated some commissioners and many environmentalists, the state Department of Fish and Game made public a last-minute memo Thursday morning that appeared to favor the developer. The memo said building on the larger 183-acre area might benefit endangered birds more than the commission staff’s scaled-down 60-acre alternative, because the number of predatory birds living on the mesa and feeding on the rare birds would decrease.

The memo from Deputy Director Ron Rempel contradicted an earlier report prepared by three biologists assigned to study the issue for the state. Some angry development foes claimed the new memo was proof that Davis favors developer Hearthside Homes.

But Rempel said Thursday afternoon that he wrote the memo because the three biologists “didn’t resolve the effort in a clear way.” He added, “I have heard nothing out of the governor’s office.”

A spokesman for the governor referred calls to Nichols’ office. Stanley Young, a spokesman for the agency, said it was no surprise that there was high-level interest in the vote.

“Everyone knows this is a seminal decision and, in a sense, is a landmark decision, and is a classic case of development versus conservation,” Young said. “It would be remiss of this administration not to take an interest in a case of this magnitude.”

As for the administration siding with the developer, he said: “I wasn’t there. It would be incorrect to make a statement on it. These people are welcome to say what they need to say. It’s an independent commission.”

Parent Company Gave to Davis Campaign

Hearthside’s parent company, California Coastal Communities, contributed $5,000 to Davis last year. Signal Landmark, another affiliate, contributed $10,000. Hearthside’s parent company spent $445,761 on Sacramento-based lobbyists in 1999 and the first nine months of this year.

All week, project supporters and foes have feverishly lobbied commissioners and tried to tally the potential votes.

Nichols, appointed by Davis as the state’s top environmental official, said firmly that the governor is not taking a position on the Hearthside project. She said Davis favors growth and development but also cares about the Bolsa Chica wetlands, especially since he oversaw a 1997 state purchase of part of the property.

“I have not received any orders and instructions,” she said.

Commissioner Shirley S. Dettloff, also a Huntington Beach city councilwoman, made the motion that was passed unanimously by her colleagues. It was Dettloff who 25 years ago founded the first group opposing development of Bolsa Chica. In recent years some environmentalists have criticized her for making votes they said favored developers. Thursday night, they stood and cheered when her motion passed.

At a restaurant after the vote, eight of her colleagues raised their glasses and said: “To Shirley. To Bolsa.”

“I’ve been with this 30 years, and every decision we’ve made, all of those decisions led to a better project,” Dettloff said.

The approved project is only the latest of a litany of developments proposed for the Bolsa Chica area, and it faces several more hurdles, including possible renewed legal appeals.

A predecessor of Hearthside Homes proposed a marina, hotels and 5,700 homes on 1,547 acres. But the project has shrunk steadily over the years, as a series of judges ruled against the developer, and environmental groups fought to save the wetlands and the adjoining mesa.

The most significant change came in 1997, when the state spent $25 million to buy 880 acres of wetlands from Hearthside’s immediate predecessor, Koll Real Estate Group, which was forced into bankruptcy reorganization over the long delays on the project. A $100-million-plus plan is being prepared by state and federal agencies to restore the wetlands.

At more than 1,200 acres, Bolsa Chica is one of the largest remaining coastal wetlands in Southern California, where more than 91% of wetlands have been lost to development.

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Times staff writers Seema Mehta and Dan Morain contributed to this report.