Scaled-Down Bolsa Chica Plan Approved

SANTA ANA —  Capping nearly 30 years of bitter controversy, the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a scaled-down development plan for the bluffs above the Bolsa Chica wetlands, one of the last and largest open coastal areas in Southern California.

The plan, fought over for decades in the courts and before government agencies, allows 1,235 homes on the mesa behind the Bolsa Chica wetlands near Huntington Beach.

It’s a sweeping reduction from Koll Real Estate Group’s original plan to build nearly 6,000 homes there, including 900 partly on the environmentally sensitive wetlands.

“The project has changed for the better,” Supervisor Jim Silva said. “This is an undeniable win for the environment.”

Lucy Dunn, a spokeswoman for Koll, said, “It’s time to get this over and done.”

The supervisors’ vote Tuesday, taken after about 20 protesters demonstrated against the project outside, effectively removes the last hurdle barring construction, county officials said.

“It’s a great conclusion to a very contentious process,” said Tom Mathews, director of the county’s planning and development services department. “Everybody wins.”

The project is expected to be certified by the California Coastal Commission, which earlier approved the building plan, on Dec. 9, Mathews said. After that, the county will begin issuing permits for grading and other construction activities.

“It’s a procedural process from here on in,” he said. “We’re very close to seeing development activity on the mesa, probably by next spring.”

The 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Charles V. Smith absent, effectively resolves an issue that began in 1970, when Signal Landmark, now a subsidiary of the Koll company, acquired 1,600 acres in and around the ecologically sensitive Bolsa Chica wetlands.

The company’s proposal has drawn unrelenting criticism because the area--the largest unprotected stretch of coastal marshland south of San Francisco--forms a natural habitat for dozens of species of fish, mammals and birds, including some considered endangered.

Over 27 years, according to Dunn, no fewer than 100 development plans for the site have been prepared and discussed.

One of them--an ambitious plan to build 5,700 homes, a 1,300-slip marina, two 2,000-foot jetties and an array of oceanfront hotels, shops and restaurants--was approved by the supervisors in 1985. Eventually, it got bogged down in legal and political challenges.

Later, a coalition of representatives from the developer, state and local government and environmental groups met for six months to hammer out an agreement that eliminated the proposed marina, hotels and restaurants, significantly reduced the number of planned houses and sharply increased the number of wetland acres the developer would restore.

From that agreement evolved a 1994 plan, eventually approved by county supervisors and the California Coastal Commission, to build 3,300 homes in and around the area, including 900 in the lowlands.

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That plan hit a snag early this year when, in an historic, $91-million deal that pleased environmentalists, the state purchased 880 acres of Bolsa Chica, promising to preserve and protect what had become one of the most famous stretches of coastline in Southern California. The acquisition further reduced Koll’s construction plans to 2,400 homes.

Then in May, a Superior Court judge nixed key parts of that plan, sending it back to the Coastal Commission for reconsideration and ultimately reducing the number of proposed houses to 1,235.

The plan that ultimately survived calls for homes that are expected to sell for more than $300,000, 18 acres of parklands, five miles of public trails and a developer contribution toward the eventual construction of a nature center and wetlands restoration.

According to Dunn, the houses are to be built in two phases: the first to be completed by late 2000, the second in 2002.

Tuesday’s meeting was considerably less rancorous than previous public hearings over Bolsa Chica, some of which had drawn hundreds of spectators and many speakers on each side of the issue.

This time fewer than a dozen people spoke, largely because many opponents of the project stayed away.

“Why ask people to take time off from work to no effect?” said Sandy Genis, a spokeswoman for the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, which has long opposed any development near the wetlands. “It was pretty much a done deal going in. [The supervisors’] minds were made up.”

Instead of speaking out at the meeting, Genis said, land trust members had staged a protest before it started, including a satirical skit criticizing the process by which the decision had been reached.

“There was a farce inside, so why not have one outside?” said Genis, a former mayor of Costa Mesa.

Those who did speak at the meeting represented a range of positions.

“This is a balanced project for the environment and the community,” said Ernie Bartolo, who described himself as a longtime resident of Huntington Beach. “The so-called environmentalists have never negotiated fairly. Koll has made many concessions and they deserve approval today--our community needs this.”

Sally Alexander, another longtime resident, was equally adamant on the other side.

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“The whole Bolsa Chica ought to be saved, including the mesa,” she said. “That is part of the ecosystem too--you can’t be a little bit pregnant.”

The land trust is not yet ready to concede defeat, Genis said.

The group will meet soon, she said, to consider other possible actions, including further litigation to “make sure they do it right.”

“We are still aggressively pursuing funds to purchase the property,” Genis said. “To lie down and die is not an option.”

Koll Vice President Ed Mountford, meanwhile, was cautiously optimistic.

Had this really been the last major hurdle? “I thought that back in 1996,” he said.

Nonetheless, Mountford said, the project’s future does finally seem assured.

“This time it’s obviously more certain,” he said. “They pay me to put the project in the ground and that’s what I look forward to doing next spring.”

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Plan Approved

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved scaled-down plans for development of the Bolsa Chica wetlands. Locations and how the plans were reduced:

1. Bolsa Chica Mesa (214 acres)

Earlier plan: 3,300 homes

Approved: 1,235 homes

2. Lowland

Earlier plan: 900 homes

Approved: No development

Source: Times reports