Coastal Panel OKs Homes on Hellman Land

The California Coastal Commission gave final approval Wednesday to a 70-home gated community on Seal Beach’s Hellman Ranch, ending two decades of battles over the coastal property that at one point triggered death threats against local officials.

The commission voted unanimously for Hellman Properties LLC’s plan to build an upscale community on 18 acres of a 196-acre undeveloped parcel near the San Gabriel River. The project also will add parking signs and trails to the existing 15-acre Gum Grove Park.

But the vote at a meeting in Oceanside came only after the developer agreed to add more than 50 acres with producing oil wells to a 100-acre parcel of lowlands property that must be sold only for conservation and wetlands restoration. The lowlands area once was slated to be a golf course.

A 25-year deed restriction would bar sale of the lowlands for anything but restoration purposes. Once oil production is exhausted, a 25-year deed restriction for conservation or wetlands restoration also will apply to the 50-acre area.

Hellman Properties now is in talks with several parties, including the Trust for Public Lands and the Port of Long Beach, about selling the 100-acre lowlands property.

The decision was long in coming for the developer, which won commission approval for various incarnations of the project twice before. Wednesday’s public hearing lasted more than three hours.

“It’s been challenging, but it’s exciting to have this part of the process resolved,” said Hellman’s Jerry Tone.

Commission Chairwoman Sara Wan, who voted against development in 1998, congratulated the developer and said now she is proud of the project.

“Finally they’re getting development and the wetlands are going to be restored,” Wan said.

Former project critics were guardedly optimistic.

“This could be something to celebrate,” said Marcia Hanscom, executive director of the Malibu-based Wetlands Action Network. “However, it will take a huge amount of effort on the part of the public.”

Hanscom and other activists vowed to remain vigilant to ensure that the developer’s promises of signage and water quality measures will be carried out.

Work is unlikely to begin on the project until next year at the earliest, but Tone said archeological inspections will begin soon to search for Native American artifacts.

Previous Plan Drew 2 Lawsuits

The commission narrowly approved the project in 1998, including an 18-hole golf course on the lowlands that would have destroyed nearly 18 acres of wetlands. Environmentalists vocally objected to the vote, saying the project ran afoul of the state’s Coastal Act.

That decision prompted two lawsuits by three environmental groups--the League for Coastal Protection, California Earth Corps and Wetlands Action Network--accusing the powerful state agency of violating the Coastal Act, which only allows wetlands filling in eight situations. The commission’s own staff had written that it saw no legal basis for allowing the filling of wetlands for a golf course.

Coastal wetlands are unique habitats where ocean meets land. Teeming with wildlife, coastal wetlands in Southern California provide food for migratory birds and purify runoff before it enters the ocean. Over the last century, more than 95% of the state’s coastal wetlands have been developed.

The 27 acres of degraded wetlands on Hellman Ranch are adjacent to a 123-acre coastal marsh, which is all that remains of what was once the 2,400-acre Alamitos Bay wetlands network.

“This is the first domino in a line of projects that will result in many, many acres of wetlands restoration at the mouth of the San Gabriel River,” Tone said.

Hellman Properties agreed nearly a year ago to send the development back to the commission for approval--without the golf course. Under the settlement, the developer can try to build under the previously approved plan if the commission doesn’t approve the revised plans. But a state Supreme Court decision involving another Orange County wetlands hot spot makes such a move unlikely.

The court in August 1999 upheld an appellate ruling against the Coastal Commission that said, under the Coastal Act, residential development is inappropriate in the Bolsa Chica wetlands even if it financed wetland restoration elsewhere.

Attorneys for Hellman Properties, the commission and the environmentalists have said the Bolsa Chica decision helped hasten the latest settlement.

Because the 18 acres of wetlands will be spared, the developer no longer is required to compensate for them. Hence plans to restore nine acres of wetlands and creation of an additional 30 acres as mitigation for environmental damage was eliminated.

These lawsuits were only the most recent in what has been a long and tortured history of attempts to develop Hellman Ranch, which has been in the Hellman family since the 1880s. Plans promoted by various developers have been dramatically downsized, from an original attempt to build 1,000 multiple- and single-family homes to the current 70 dwellings.

In 1997, several officials--including then-Seal Beach Mayor Gwen Forsythe--revealed that they received bullets in the mail, prompting an FBI investigation. Similar mailings were made to officials tied to a Bolsa Chica and a Newport Beach project; all parcels were thought to contain Native American remains.

Six years earlier, Seal Beach voters rejected much larger plans, defeating the project’s advocates who were backed by the Mola Development Corp. and who outspent the opposition 20 to 1.

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* COASTAL SQUABBLE

State’s top environmental regulator, Coastal Commission are at odds. A3

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The Shape of Hellman Future

Plans to develop the Hellman Ranch have undergone a major evolution. The latest incarnation would include 70 single-family homes. An earlier plan included 1,000 single- and multifamily dwellings. The current development plan:

Sources: Hellman Properties, California Coastal Commission, Times reports