Group sues to keep residents in Crystal Cove

Paul Clinton

CRYSTAL COVE -- A group of local preservationists have sued the state

to keep the residents of Crystal Cove State Park from being evicted from

their cottages.

State Parks officials have set Sunday at 5 p.m. as the final deadline

for residents of the 46 historic cottages to vacate the publicly owned

land. If completed, it would be the culmination of more than 20 years of

effort by California State Parks to remove the residents.

The Crystal Cove Community Trust filed the suit Tuesday afternoon. It

accuses the state of illegally removing the residents without adequately

analyzing the decision’s effect on the environment.

Bruce Hostetter, the executive director of the trust, said the state

also failed to provide a forum for public input on the decision.

By evicting the tenants now, without a plan for the future of the

historic district, state parks is forfeiting about $1.5 million in rental

revenue from the tenants and contributing to the deterioration of the

cottages, Hostetter said.

“Every cottage dweller I’ve talked to is convinced that the state is

going to let them rot,” Hostetter said of the cottages. “These things are

living organisms. . . . They’re buildings that act and react to the

environment.”

Hostetter familiarized himself with the residents’ plight earlier this

year when he began interviewing the residents for a documentary about the

history of Crystal Cove. He is also an instructor at Cal State Long Beach

and Cal Poly Pomona, where he has taught a class about the cove.

State Parks spokesman Roy Stearns said Tuesday he hadn’t seen the

lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, but he disputed

Hostetter’s claims.

The suit doesn’t ask for an emergency ruling to halt the evictions.

“This is another delay in the process that opens this [beach] up to

public use,” Stearns said. “We’re surprised by it, but we don’t think it

has any merit.”

The state bought the district’s 46 beachfront cottages and 3.25-mile

coastline from the Irvine Co. in 1979 for $32.6 million.

The cottages, built in the 1920s and ‘30s, were placed on the National

Register of Historic Places that same year.

The Crystal Cove Community Trust was formed by Hostetter and three

others, none of whom live in the district, to file the suit and help

develop a plan to restore the cabins.