Long Beach Council OKs Annexation of 302 Acres

Touching off what could be a prolonged battle with environmentalists, the Long Beach City Council on Tuesday approved the annexation of 302 acres of environmentally sensitive county territory along the Orange County line.

The land, privately owned and targeted for residential and retail development, is the last remaining parcel of unincorporated county territory in Long Beach. The county’s Local Agency Formation Commission has given preliminary approval to the annexation, but must still give final approval.

The acreage encompasses an uninhabited marshy area south of the Los Cerritos Channel, extending north and east of Pacific Coast Highway on both sides of Westminster Avenue to the Orange County line. Although the land’s chief use historically has been as an oil field, it also serves as a wildlife sanctuary, environmentalists say.

“We have to decide whether it is going to be filled up with all sorts of development or whether it will be saved as a wetlands,” said Ann Cantrell, a spokeswoman for the Long Beach Audubon Society and member of the Los Cerritos Wetlands Task Force.