Future of wetlands up in air

Dave Brooks

Local environmentalists are tangling with University of California

officials over the value of a small sliver of wetlands located along

Pacific Coast Highway.

Tucked into the Talbert Marsh between a nearby flood channel and

Brookhurst Street, the 17-acre parcel has tied up a comprehensive

wetlands restoration project that won’t move forward until the

dispute is settled

Mayor Jill Hardy recently wrote a letter to the UC board of

regents urging them to sell the property for $500,000 -- the regents

think the value could be closer to $4 million.

The parcel is located near some of the most expensive coastal real

estate in California, but environmentalists argue that the land can’t

be built on. The 29-year-old California Coastal Act severely limits

what can be done to the wetlands, which could be home to endangered

species. Technically the land could be developed for ocean-dependent

energy generation, but that seems unlikely.

“There would have to be zero environmental damage,” City Planner

Scott Hess said.

The parcel is also surrounded by property held by the Huntington

Beach Wetlands Conservancy, and project manager Gary Gorman said his

group won’t allow a road to be built through its marsh to access the

parcel.

UC officials said they are willing to sell the property, but only

for the right price, UC spokesperson Trey Davis wrote in an e-mail to

the Independent.

“We are interested in selling the property,” he said. “We have a

fiduciary obligation to the donor of the property, but we are willing

to sell the parcel to the conservancy if an agreement about fair

market value can be reached.”

The former owner of that property was Pacific Enviro Design, a

now-defunct land company that rose out of the ashes of Mills Land and

Water Co.

The land was first purchased by Mills in 1901, along with 230

surrounding acres, under the guise of creating a beachside resort in

the future.

The resort never materialized and in the 1960s, Caltrans used

eminent domain to purchase the land in hopes of building a freeway

from the Garden Grove Freeway to a planned Pacific Coast Freeway.

Neither plan came to fruition and Mills eventually sued Caltrans to

get its land back, as well as the city for zoning the parcel as a

wetlands.

Mills recently settled both its lawsuits and in 2000, the parcel

was eventually donated to UC Riverside under the belief that it might

still be developable.

“At the time, an independent appraisal performed for the donor

valued the parcel at $4 million, based on its development,” Davis

wrote. “That figure would be lower of course, if the property were to

remain undeveloped wetlands.”