Court Rules Long Beach Broke No Laws in Pike Project : Development: Ruling is the second such setback for environmentalists. Barring an appeal, construction could start late next year.

LONG BEACH —  A nearly two-year legal fight to block downtown’s massive Pike project lost in court this week when judges ruled that the city broke no environmental laws when it approved one of the nation’s largest urban renewal projects.

The ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles paves the way for construction late next year on the $1-billion “city within a city,” although opponents say they will decide within two weeks whether to take their battle to the California Supreme Court.

Tuesday’s ruling was the second defeat for local environmentalists trying to block the mammoth seaside project at the blighted site of the old Pike amusement park on Ocean Boulevard between Magnolia and Pine avenues. A lower court judge ruled last year in favor of the city’s largest development ever, a crucial part of the city’s plan to bring downtown to life.

“This is awfully strong testimony by the court that the city of Long Beach had been responsible in (its) processing of this project and that we had done the proper thing,” said Wayne Ratkovich, one of the Pike’s leading developers. “This is a project we think the entire city of Long Beach will be proud to see on its coastline.”

While city officials liken the complex of ocean-view condominiums, offices and shops to San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center, critics say it will overpower downtown with traffic snarls and polluted air.

The 1989 lawsuit was filed by Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, a political watchdog group, which contends that the city approved the project without informing the public how it intended to deal with the inevitable infusion of traffic and new employees--an estimated 8,000.

Their fight was fueled last year when then-Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp concluded in a friend-of-the-court opinion that the city had violated environmental laws when it approved the Pike project.

But the three-judge panel held that the city made a “bona fide, good faith effort” to obey those laws, and had not “ignored or neglected” its duties.

The judges reasoned that the city should be trusted to keep its promise to reduce traffic and could not be faulted for failing to tell the public how, a finding that both angered and concerned the project’s opponents.

“This ‘trust me’ form of government can not be tolerated,” LBACI attorney Marc Coleman said. “Are we supposed to let the governments say, ‘Don’t worry about that nuclear power plant. Just approve it now and we’ll figure out how to protect you next year?’ ”

According to Coleman, the city has forced the public to blindly accept a record-size development without understanding what the consequences might be.

It was not until after the lawsuit was filed, Coleman said, that the city announced it would offset Pike traffic by eliminating curbside parking on busy east-west corridors such as Broadway and Anaheim Street.

Shopkeepers and restaurateurs vigorously protested, saying such restrictions could drive them out of business. By then, however, the project was already approved.

“If the public was not given all of the facts, how could they intelligently choose what they wanted?” Coleman said.

Pike Properties Associates, the joint venture which is building the project, told the court that it has agreed in advance to accept the results of the city’s areawide traffic study and issue a “blank check” to pay its fair share to offset any environmental damage.

“I don’t know of any human being smart enough to forecast solutions that may be appropriate five or 10 years from now,” Ratkovich said. “We will either pay what it takes to allow development to proceed without negative impacts on the environment or we won’t develop it.”

Critics also argued that the city has approved the Pike project and at least 10 other downtown developments without considering the big picture, including a sweeping plan to expand the Port of Long Beach and the Walt Disney Co.’s proposed amusement park and resort.

But the court held that the Disney project was too “premature” to consider, then faulted LBACI for failing to bring up the port expansion when the Pike’s environmental impact report was under review.

Oddly, it appears that the fluctuating real estate market may have accomplished what the lawsuit has not. The first phase of the Pike project--scheduled to be built in stages over this decade--recently was dramatically scaled back, eliminating a hotel and several offices to build mostly residential units.

“It’s no secret that we’re in an overbuilt office and hotel market and that financing for those types of projects is virtually nonexistent today,” Ratkovich said in a recent press release. “Times change, markets change and development plans, if they are to succeed, must change too.”