Hearst Hits Setback in San Simeon

Moving to protect one of the last unblemished stretches of the state’s shoreline, the California Coastal Commission on Thursday recommended sweeping zoning changes in San Luis Obispo County that would prevent Hearst Corp. from building anything that could be seen from California 1, any roadway turnout or from the ocean.

The commission’s efforts to push for changes in local zoning rules are only recommendations. The ultimate authority remains with San Luis Obispo County.

But the vote was nonetheless strenuously opposed by Hearst Corp.’s phalanx of lawyers and lobbyists. The company fears that the commission’s move could sway county officials and severely limit options for developing its vast land holdings or selling the development rights.

In addition to opposing any development visible from the highway, the commission also urged the county to roll back zoning on the sprawling 130-square-mile Hearst Ranch at San Simeon to preserve it as open farmland.

If the recommendations are adopted, any attempt by Hearst to revive its plans to build a resort hotel complex on the ranch would be limited to two places: the strip of motels in the community of San Simeon Acres along California 1 or a tiny hamlet with one general store called Old San Simeon Village.

The recommendations came as the commission completed its first review of San Luis Obispo County’s overall blueprint for development, called a local coastal plan. Hearst is the county’s largest private landowner, with property that stretches along 18 miles of coastline on the road south of Big Sur.

“Even though the Hearst Corp. is the 800-pound gorilla on our back, there are a lot of chimpanzees [in the county] going to be affected by this,” said Shirley Bianchi, a San Luis Obispo County supervisor.

She asked the commission to postpone its decision so she could figure out how the massive, 274-page document with 165 recommendations would affect other coastal property owners in the fast-growing county.

Stephen T. Hearst, who manages the corporation’s properties, also asked the commission for more time so his lawyers could review the extensive recommendations. “It’s more important to do something right, than right away,” said the great-grandson of William Randolph Hearst.

But the 12-member commission unanimously approved the review, finding that San Luis Obispo County’s antiquated coastal plan is out of compliance with the state Coastal Act. The commission urged the county to take corrective action within the next year.

The county is not required to adopt these recommended changes. Instead, it must simply report back in a year and, if it rejects them, explain why.

A bill pending in the Legislature would strengthen the commission’s hand in pushing its recommended updates. If the measure is passed into law, the commission could then reject projects that come up on appeal from local decision-makers, or turn away the steady stream of amendments to local coastal plans.

Despite the requests for more time, commissioners agreed with environmentalists--who traveled to Santa Rosa by the busload from San Luis Obispo County--that the review of the local coastal plan, now nine years overdue, had been put off long enough.

“These outdated local coastal plans are the single biggest problem for the commission and the single biggest threat to coastal resources,” said commission Chairwoman Sara Wan. “Nature isn’t static. Nor should be these plans. What was a wetland 25 years ago may not be one now, or vice versa.”

Under the voter-approved Coastal Act, local governments were supposed to draw up local coastal plans and take over the tough job of meting out building permits. The commission was to serve as an appeals board, the court of last resort.

But it hasn’t worked out that way. Even if local governments adopted local coastal plans--some boomtowns have not--many of these plans have become outdated.

Under the law, the commission was supposed to review local coastal plans every five years and recommend ways to update and improve them.

Yet the commission, which has had its budget cut deeply by previous governors, has reviewed only two of these plans in its history. The reviews were done in the 1980s for tiny Trinidad, north of Eureka, and Sand City, near Monterey.

So the commission has been inundated with thousands of appeals and amendments to these old plans, making the commission operate more like a planning board for the state’s entire 1,100-mile coastline than a body setting broad coastal policy.

As it grapples with issues as minuscule as home remodeling jobs, the commission has been robbed of time to focus on regional policies such as establishing the California Coastal Trail, curbing polluted runoff into the ocean or wrestling with the cumulative impact of growth.

Meantime, many local coastal plans remain antiquated. Some were written more than 20 years ago, before officials knew as much as they do now about wetlands, beach erosion or polluted runoff.

On a regular basis, commissioners find themselves in the uncomfortable situation of approving projects that don’t make sense--but that meet the technical requirements of an outdated local plan.

For instance, the commission gave its reluctant approval earlier this year to an Oxnard housing development after the builder came up with an unusual scheme to meet the city’s requirement for preserving prime farmland.

Instead of preserving the farm, the developer offered to scrape the rich topsoil off the site and move it to another plot near the Santa Clara River. In all, it was a three-way soil swap, prompting Sierra Club coastal activist Mark Massara to dub it “mad science, digging up a farm to save it.”

At least one group of environmentalists has become so frustrated with the backlog that it has sued. To settle one such suit, filed by the Coalition to Save the Marina, the commission this week agreed to launch the first-ever review of Marina del Rey’s local coastal plan.

“Our only defense is that we don’t have the staff,” said Peter Douglas, the commission’s executive director.

Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature seem to recognize the problem. Next year’s budget includes money for an extra 14 staff members to catch up with the periodic reviews over the next five years.

The panel decided to make San Luis Obispo’s plan the first to undergo review because the county has prompted more appeals than any other jurisdiction.

The recommended changes range from helping the county rein in urban sprawl to avoiding the construction of more sea walls to strategies aimed at protecting the beaches now used by elephant seals near Hearst Castle.