Crystal Cove evictions put on hold

Paul Clinton

CRYSTAL COVE -- The evictions are on hold.

On Friday, the cottage dwellers at Crystal Cove State Park earned a

three-week reprieve in a tentative settlement deal with the state’s parks

department.

The residents had sued the state agency after it issued 30-day notices

Monday that required them to leave their homes by March 11. No longer.

“It’s on hold for three weeks,” said Deborah Rosenthal, the residents’

attorney. The extension will allow us “to sit down and explore the

possibility of settling the issue.”

The settlement won’t undo the evictions, only set a newtimetable for

when they would occur, said state parks spokesman Roy Stearns. The

residents now are scheduled to be evicted April 1 if no deal is reached.

“What that does is stop the clock while we seek a solution that would

be amenable to the residents,” Stearns said. “We’re talking about the

time we would give them to stay in the cottages.”

On another front Friday, Gov. Gray Davis announced a deal providing

for a state buyout of San Francisco developer Michael Freed. The deal is

the final stake in the heart of Freed’s $35-million resort project, which

was uniformly opposed by local groups.

“This truly is a triple win,” Davis said in a statement. “It is

responsive to the community, expands environmental protection and

reimburses the developer for costs incurred up to now.”

At its March 22 meeting, the seven-member California Coastal

Conservancy board is set to consider using state park bond funds to pay

Freed up to $2 million for costs incurred since he signed a 60-year

concessionaire’s contract with former Gov. Pete Wilson’s administration

in 1997.

State representatives have asked Freed for a detailed itemization of

his costs. Freed did not return several calls for comment.

As Freed’s luxury resort falls by the wayside, a coalition of

environmental groups have banned together to develop a plan for an

alternative project at the historic Crystal Cove.

Heiress Joan Irvine Smith, who brought her high-profile presence to

the issue in mid-January, said she will host a meeting Friday at her San

Juan Capistrano ranch.

“We’ll throw out some ideas on the table to try to find a common

ground on something everybody likes,” Smith said.

Smith also said she has set the wheel in motion to form the Crystal

Cove Conservancy, a nonprofit group that could direct educational efforts

at the historic district.

The 46 cottages at Crystal Cove, placed on the National Register of

Historic Places in 1979, sit on the edge of a marine ecosystem that has

been singled out by the state as an area of special biological

significance. It contains one of only two birthing grounds of the

bottlenose dolphin along the coastline.

With the evictions on hold, the state has also postponed signing

several ready-to-go contracts with engineering firms to assess the septic

tanks underneath the cottages. Parks officials have said they must

replace the tanks to comply with a cleanup order from the Santa Ana

Regional Water Quality Control Board. The tanks are suspected of leaking

into the cove.

To fund the replacement of the tanks, which the state parks department

estimates could cost up to $10 million, the agency will apply for

water-quality bond revenue from Proposition 13, which voters approved in

March.

If the state can successfully fund the Freed buyout, as well as the

septic tank work, a new plan for Crystal Cove could be developed with a

few less strings, Coastal Conservancy board member and Laguna Beach

resident Paul Morabito said.

“By doing that, you take the money issue off the table,” Morabito

said. “It becomes a pure public process.”