Coastal Panel’s Vote Dooms Trailer Park at Crystal Cove

A drawn-out battle between residents of an aging beachfront trailer park and the state came to an end Wednesday as the California Coastal Commission cleared the way for the compound to be bulldozed to make way for a public campground.

Barring last-minute legal action, tenants of the trailer park must be off the land by New Year’s Day.

Dozens of El Morro Mobile Home Park residents crowded the hearing in a San Diego hotel conference room, asking commissioners to let them stay in their homes.

The mobile home park does not stop public access to the beach, said resident Bruce Rosen. “Anyone can go there at any time, there are no guards, there are no gates. It’s not a place where privileged people live, as [critics] say.”

The ruling permits local officials with the California Department of Parks and Recreation to demolish the mobile home park as part of a $10.4-million plan to convert the private community into a day-use and overnight campground in Crystal Cove State Park. Residents of the 287 mobile homes, which sit on the beach and along the edge of El Moro Canyon across Pacific Coast Highway, must remove their mobile homes by Jan. 1.

Construction could begin in the spring, a Crystal Cove State Park official said, and could be completed in 12 to 18 months. The project will include a small amphitheater, public restrooms, picnic areas and restoration of El Moro Creek.

The trailer park occupies about 32 acres of Crystal Cove State Park along each side of Pacific Coast Highway, midway between Laguna Beach and Corona del Mar. The park also includes 46 cottages built in the 1920s at Crystal Cove, now being renovated for overnight stays.

The trailer park and cottages have been at the focus of intense renter-landlord fights for years, with the state trying to open the land for public use and residents doing their utmost to hang onto their homes. The cottages were vacated in 2001.

Residents of the trailers rented their sites on a month-to-month basis from the Irvine Co. until the state bought the land for $32.5 million in 1979. The state offered residents 20-year leases that were extended in 1999 for five years.

The El Morro Community Assn., which represents trailer park residents, has floated proposals to add 50 affordable housing units at the compound in exchange for being allowed to stay in their trailers an additional 30 years. They have waged ad campaigns and sued the state in 2002, challenging a state environmental review.

Last week, a state appellate court rejected the group’s contentions that the state parks department hid technical reports from the public and violated approval procedures. The group has not decided whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court. And with Wednesday’s Coastal Commission vote, residents’ options seemed thin.

“We believe we raised some good faith arguments” before the commission, said Wayne Rosenbaum, an attorney for the residents. Wednesday’s decision by the panel, he said, “changes, in my view, the face of the Coastal Commission. I remain concerned that the commission is confusing two issues: How the state will use its land and how it will protect that land.”

“Our hearts go out to what the tenants are feeling,” said Ken Kramer, park superintendent for Crystal Cove, after the vote. “But at the same time we have a responsibility to 35 million people in California who own an equal share [of the park] to enjoy it.”