The term of the California Coastal Commission member representing the Central Coast expires May 20, and the Sierra Club (among others) says it’s time for a change.  The group’s "conservation voting score" for Monterey County Supervisor Dave Potter has declined from 64 percent in 1999 to 25 percent in 2005.

The appointment will be made by state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Central LA). According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, this position typically draws applicants from San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. Nuñez is keeping mum on his plans.

Mark Massara, who heads the Sierra Club’s coastal program, says it’s time to contact Speaker Nuñez about the appointment.

Wavecrest Partners called off a scheduled wetlands delineation on their property the day before it was scheduled to take place last week. This is a necessary step in their application to have to have the US Army Corps of Engineers issue a permit for the project. According to Ed Wylie at the Corps, "The application is incomplete until we know what our jurisdiction is." The wetlands delineation will determine what portion of the land is in Corps jurisdiction.

The delineation has been rescheduled for May 18. A lot hangs on Wavecrest’s application before the Corps, which could shave years off the time it takes to get the project built. It’s less clear why this crucial step was delayed for yet another month, when the date of this delineation was set more than a month ago. 

Neither the city of Half Moon Bay nor Cabrillo Unified School District, both of whom are important stakeholders in the project, knew that the delineation had been cancelled. Half Moon Bay City Council member Mike Ferreira told me the city was unaware that the delineation had been called off. CUSD board president Dwight Wilson had also not been informed. He’s expecting an update from Wavecrest later this week.

Wavecrest Partners did not return my call for comment.

The state Supreme Court will decide the fate of the California Coastal Commission, beginning to hear the case today.

The Commission is appealing an appeals court decision that says it is illegally constituted. The original case was brought by the Marine Forests Society, which the Commission ordered to stop building an artificial reef outside Newport Beach Harbor., according to an AP story in the Mercury News.

In the 1990s, it blocked plans to build a seaside resort proposed by the Hearst Corp. in San Luis Obispo County, as well as a major residential development in the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Orange County. In the 1980s, it forced property owners to create easements allowing public access to the beaches - a practice later condemned by the U.S. Supreme Court as "extortion."

The LA Times has a nice review of the turmoil surrounding Sid McCausland’s resignation in order to move to Alaska, where the living is cheap and cold.  Most of it you’ve heard before, but it’s interesting to read it from the perspective of a community that never really trusted open space as a value.

Down at Original Johnny’s, the Main Street diner where Half Moon Bay’s old guard presides over the round table in the back, they don’t believe McCausland is leaving because he has been priced out. They don’t endorse his policy fixes. They’d rather not admit to any common ground with their former councilman if they had a choice.

The Times story discusses the opposition’s idea that we can build our way out of the cost of housing in the Bay Area, without examining whether it can be done.

UPDATE:  The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors did not make a decision about this important issue at the hearing on March 28.  It’s not too late to send your comments to the address at the end of this article.

When the Devil’s Slide tunnel is finally built, CalTrans will be left with a big chunk of Montara’s and Moss Beach’s back yard. And the fate of that space is the subject of a struggle.

If you live in Montara, you’re probably familiar with the bypass, a strip of empty land, some of it cultivated, running east of Elm Street.  The original plan was to run a freeway through the back end of Montara and Moss Beach and down to the Half Moon Bay Airport.  Even after that plan was abandoned for a bypass a little further north, and the second plan was dropped for the tunnel, Caltrans has hung on to the land for these routes until the road is built.

One condition of building the tunnel was that the northern portion of the original Right of Way be sold to the California State Parks system. But now it’s time to decide what to do with the part that runs through Montara and Moss Beach. Will it be kept open, or developed for more houses?

In its recommendations for the update to the County’s Local Coastal Plan (LCP), the Midcoast Community Council (MCC) recommended that the CalTrans Right of Way be rezoned from residential to open space. Other Local Coastal Plan recommendations urge Caltrans to voluntarily merge existing subdivided lots within the ROW and then sell the resulting single parcel to a public agency at a price not to exceed its original cost. This would promote the use of the property for trails and other open space uses.

The San Mateo County Association of Realtors (SAMCAR) has a different vision. In a letter to the County Board of Supervisors, SAMCAR said that it opposes designating the old Caltrans freeway bypass in Montara as open space because "being adjacent to the new tunnel, these properties would be ideal sites [for homes] given their proximity to transit."

People already use this land for recreation. I walk my dogs there and see a lot of my neighbors there as well. It could be used for a recreational trail, inland away from Highway 1, stretching all the way from the Half Moon Bay airport to Pacifica.

"A lot of people already thought this land was protected," says Montara resident Jonathan Garfield. Garfield has been working getting Montarans interested in this issue.

What you can do: The Board of Supervisors will hold a hearing on the LCP revisions on March 29. The hearing will be at Board of Supervisors Chambers, 400 County Center in Redwood City at 10:00 am. At the previous meeting of the Board, nearly all the speakers were Realtors pushing for their vision of an LCP. This is a good opportunity for Montara and Moss Beach residents to make it clear that they have another vision.

If you can’t attend the hearing, you can mail a letter to the supervisors:

San Mateo County Board of Supervisors

Board President Rich Gordon

Members Mark Church, Jerry Hill, Rose Jacobs Gibson and Adrienne Tissier

400 County Center

Redwood City, 94063

The Half Moon Bay Community Park Master Plan Committee is looking for community input to their new park planning process.  I’ve received a copy of their survey from Joe Falcone, committee member and HMB Planning Commissioner. This is a longer version of the survey that appeared in the Half Moon Bay Review on Wednesday. Completed surveys are due by Monday, April 4.

There are two versions of the survey: an Acrobat version you can print out and mail to the city’s Parks & Recreation department at the address below, or a Micorosoft Word version you can fill out on your computer and email to Joe Falcone. If you don’t already have Acrobat Reader, you can download it from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

City of Half Moon Bay

Parks & Recreation Department

501 Main Street

Half Moon Bay, CA 94019

You’re also invited to share your ideas with the community by posting them here on Coastsider.

The Wavecrest development is single most polarizing issue on the Coastside. Arguably, the controversy surrounding this development and later its associated middle school plan led to the emergence of a viable smart-growth alternative in Coastside politics. This July will mark the tenth anniversary of the approval of the original Wavecrest plan by a pro-development Half Moon Bay City Council.

With the recognition that the federal approval process could be long and arduous, and that Cabrillo Unified School District is once again considering alternative sites for its long-delayed middle school, now is a good time to look at how we got ourselves in this fix.

The following chronology is based on the excellent chronology prepared for the failed Measure D campaign in November 2003.  I’ve edited it to make the tone less partisan, updated it with more recent events and added links to relevant documents and stories on Coastsider.

I’m publishing this in tandem with a chronology of the CUSD middle school, which you may also find interesting. Many events show up on both timelines. Please email notes and corrections to me, or attach them as comments to this story.

Can’t get enough?  The Half Moon Bay Review published an overview of the Wavecrest project in March of 2002. There is an excellent archive of Wavecrest material on SanMateo.org.

Where: Wavecrest (the property) is located on the west side of Highway 1, roughly at the southern end of Main Street (across the highway from Johnston House) on 200 acres of open space. Smith Field is at its southwest corner.

Who: Wavecrest (the company) has had several names over the years. It is a partnership between Ocean Colony Partners (97% owned by Plumbers and Steamfitters Locals 467 and 393, and developers of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Half Moon Bay Golf Links, and the Ocean Colony gated community) and other landowners. The Cabrillo Unified School District school board are co-applicants before the Coastal Commission.

What: Wavecrest Village (the development) includes 178 new market-rate homes, 39 affordable homes, and a new middle school on the western edge of Highway 1 south of town as of March 2005

When:  Wavecrest was appealed by competing real estate developers to the California Coastal Commission. The project has been in limbo ever since, mainly due to incomplete/compromised wetlands analysis; major unresolved issues such as drainage, run-off and traffic impact; and the discovery of endangered species and habitat on the property. It is currently unclear how many years it will take before the project could be approved by federal, state, and local agencies.

July 1995
The Half Moon Bay City Council passes an ordinance approving and adopting the original Wavecrest project. This project, located south of downtown and west of Highway 1, includes 750 market-rate houses and a golf course (the developer already owns two golf courses surrounded by a gated community and (at the time) the new Ritz-Carlton a little farther south along Highway 1).

November 1995
Half Moon Bay voters pass a referendum requiring that the ordinance be repealed. This is also the start of a significant shift in local politics, away from a pro-development, pro-growth orientation to a slower, planned growth vision.

July 1999
After asking for and receiving a set of developer considerations, such as space for a new middle school, a Boys and Girls Club, five ball fields and 70 acres of open space, City Council approves a newly configured Wavecrest Village. This one calls for 225 market-rate units and 54 units of affordable units of housing, divided between two tracts, one to the north and one to south of the development. The plan also includes 18 acres of commercial/retail space (roughly three times the size of downtown Half Moon Bay. At one meeting, city council members grant a Coastal Development Permit and a vesting tentative map, and enter a binding development agreement.

However, there appear to be several "mutual mistakes in fact." For example, at the time wetlands had not been properly delineated. Also, at the time, Cabrillo Unified School District (CUSD) still provided busing to school, which mitigated traffic congestion on Highway 1, a service that has since been eliminated by the school district for budgetary reasons.

Finally, lawyers quietly remove a key provision requiring that final action on the project’s Coastal Development Permit precede the awarding of any new home development allocations under the city growth-limiting ordinance (Measure A). Wavecrest has been accumulating these scarce allocations ever since. It’s unclear whether these allocations are transferable if Wavecrest goes unbuilt.

August 1999
Competing real estate developers appeal the project before the California Coastal Commission [PDF of appeal], where it has been tied up ever since.

September 1999
The California Coastal Commission discovers that Wavecrest Partners have installed a drainage pipe in order to dry up wetlands and pass obligatory Environmental Impact Report inspections. The Commission finds that substantial issues are unresolved and assumes jurisdiction. The project is now out of local hands.

December 2001
Wavecrest’s developers withdraw their application to the California Coastal Commission. According to the Coastal Commission staff, biological studies still have not been satisfactorily completed. The Coastal Commission has yet to hear the matter.

March 2001
Wavecrest Partners submits new version its project, based on requirements put forth by the Coastal Commission. The new development includes a total of 190 market rate homes and 54 affordable units, mostly located as apartments over commercial space. Most significantly, this version eliminates the whole southern tract, where wetlands have been delineated, moving all the units to the northern section, thus doubling the density of housing and cutting lots sizes in half There is only one road into and out of the project.

March 2002
The Coastal Commission hears public testimony against Wavecrest at a public hearing in Monterey. At this point, the Sierra Club and other major environmental organizations become increasingly vocal opponents. The Sierra Club designates Wavecrest one of their "Great Coastal Places.".

May 2002
Parents and other citizens concerned with CUSD’s stalled middle school progress speak at a school board hearing on the site issue. They urge CUSD Board of Trustees to consider revamping Cunha at its current site. Board members dismiss the suggestion as a "fringe" point of view. Frustrated, citizens went out and gathered more than 1350 signatures in five days and presented them to the school board as proof of the idea’s wide community appeal. The school board reaffirms its commitment to Wavecrest.

October 2002
A new, substantially altered, version of the Wavecrest Village project, eliminating the commercial element and relocating the middle school to a site on Highway 1, is unveiled through an ad in the Half Moon Bay Review. City Council is not formally notified of the redesign and as of June 2003, Coastal Commission staff report that a new version of the official project has not yet been submitted for consideration.

May 2003
A full year passes without any progress at all on Wavecrest. California Coastal Commission staff report that they are awaiting additional biological analysis, which Wavecrest Partners has so far declined to provide. Meanwhile, two springtime efforts to pass a parcel tax fail by a narrow margin—swing voters perhaps who have cast a no-confidence vote against CUSD.

June 2003
The community rallies behind its downtown with a historic block party to celebrate and support Cunha’s Country Store, which has been razed in a fire.

July 2003
A new version of Wavecrest is unveiled, featuring 281 homes, a middle school, a Boys and Girls Club, 30,000 square feet of retail space, relocated ball fields and open space.

September 2003
Half Moon Bay City Council votes 3-2 to find Wavecrest’s developer in default of their August 1999 agreement. The council cites drastic, poorly communicated changes in the project since the council’s original approved in July 1999.

April 2004
Wavecrest introduces a new version of the development, featuring a reduction in the number of homes from 275 to 204 and the reinsertion of 123,000 square feet of commercial space.

July 2004
City of Half Moon Bay and Wavecrest Village LLC come to an agreement. The most important changes are the elimination of retail and commercial space and the reduction of the number of units from 225 to 175.  The city sends a letter to the Coastal Commission in support of the Wavecrest Village project.

A California red-legged frog, a federally-recognized threatened species, is found at Wavecrest by a herpetologist, who reports it to the California Department of Fish and Game.

August 2004
The Cabrillo Unified School District signs a new agreement with Wavecrest Village LLC.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service finds California Red-Legged Frog habitat at Wavecrest. This leads the California Coastal Commission to remove the Wavecrest project from its agenda.

September 2004
CUSD and Wavecrest developers sign an agreement to create a special district that would tax market-value homes in the development $1,000 per house per year for 30 years. The revenue from this Mello-Roos community facilities district would be earmarked for middle school improvements. There are 178 market-rate homes planned for Wavecrest.

Wavecrest almost immediately misses its new agreement’s first deadline with CUSD because of delays caused by the discovery of endangered species habitat on the property. The CUSD board declines to exercise its option to cancel the agreement.

Wavecrest’s original wetlands delineation expires, requiring a new delineation before the approval process can proceed.

November 2004
Wavecrest’s owners attempt to grow hay on a portion of the property. The US Fish and Wildlife Service and California Coastal Commission tell them to stop cultivating the property as it has been found to contain endangered species habitat.

February 2005
Wavecrest applies to the US Army Corps of Engineers for a 404 permit to allow development activity that would affect waters of the U.S.  They plan to create frog breeding ponds in the undeveloped portion of the land. If the Corps declines to accept jurisdiction, Wavecrest faces a multiyear process of developing a Habitat Conservation Plan with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

March 2005
The City of Half Moon Bay and Cabrillo Unified School District admit they’re exploring a new site for the middle school, adjacent to Half Moon Bay High School.

U.S. Department of Transportation will give California $150.3 million to build the Devil’s Slide bypass tunnel. That’s about the only news in this Chronicle story. The remainder is about how happy everyone is that it’s going to be built.

The city of Pacifica is looking to add a major widening of Highway 1 to its general plan, according to Planning Director Michael Crabtree.  The expansion, called the Calera Parkway, runs south from Reina Del Mar to Fassler Avenue [Google map] and is intended to increase circulation on a sometimes-congested portion of the highway.

The Calera Parkway is one of the most growth-inducing projects currently planned on coastal San Mateo County.  The project, if implemented, would not only affect Pacifica, but would feed traffic through the tunnels to be built at Devil’s Slide and onto the Midcoast.

The Sierra Club said in June 2002 that the Calera Parkway project would have "a significant adverse growth inducing impact on traffic and circulation" on surrounding land forms such as the quarry and hillsides.

What kind of growth? In a letter to the county Board of Supervisors, the San Mateo County Association of Realtors said that it opposes designating the old Caltrans freeway bypass in Montara as open space because "being adjacent to the new tunnel, these properties would be ideal sites [for homes] given their proximity to transit."

The Calera Parkway would be part of a revision to of the the city’s general plan, which was adopted in 1980 and is showing its age.  Among the elements to be revised are the Noise Element, the Historic Preservation Element, the Housing Element, and Circulation (traffic) Element.  The Government Code requires the Circulation Element of any General Plan be correlated with the Land Use Element.  This has the effect of a vicious cycle of improved traffic circulation driving development, creating demand for more improvements in traffic circulation.

Taken to its logical conclusion, the result of this process could look a lot like Daly City.

Bob Pilgrim

The proposed parkway will run from Reina del Mar to Fassler Ave. Click on the image for a larger version.

Bob Pilgrim

The area around the proposed parkway is already developed, and more development is in the pipeline.  LOS means "level of service" and LOS = F is the lowest level. Earthmetrics did the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in 1986.  Click on the image for a larger version.

Bob Pilgrim

If you think Pacifica badly developed, take a look at Daly City. Things could get worse. Click on the image for a larger version.

Wavecrest is continuing its headlong plunge into the murky mysteries of wetlands mitigation. This is a little complicated, but stay with me.

The developers are have applied for a permit from US Army Corps of Engineers, in order to avoid a slower permit process with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. However, it is still not certain that the Corps will decide it has jurisdiction over Wavecrest.

The challenge is that the Corps has jurisdiction only over U.S. waterways, such as wetlands, but Wavecrest wants to develop on the non-wetlands portion of the site. They plan to mitigate any federally endangered California Red-Legged Frog habitat damage in the developed non-wetlands with frog breeding ponds in the wetlands.

How do you get the Corps to assert jurisdiction over non-wetlands? It’s called a "but-for". That’s right, a "but-for". If development of the non-wetlands could not take place but for the construction of ponds in the wetlands, a case can be made for the Corps having jurisdiction over the entire property.

A couple of weeks ago, the Corps told me that they thought the application was only for the wetlands, and not for the entire site. It turns out that, as I had originally written, Wavecrest’s developers are seeking a permit under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, which would allow them to build on the non-wetlands portion of the property and mitigate this with California Red-legged Frog breeding ponds within the wetlands portion.

The Corps has not decided whether it has jurisdiction.

The first step in the process will be a new delineation of wetlands on the property. According to Holly Costa, Regulatory Project Manager with the Corps, the delineation is scheduled for April 5 and 6. This will involve walking the entire property and taking core samples, to determine what portion of the site is wetlands. The highly contentious original delineation, which was approved in 1999 by the Corps and expired in August, is at the heart of the five-year Wavecrest controversy and central to issues raised at the California Coastal Commission. After the delineation, the Corps will decide if it has jurisdiction. This will be done in consultation with the applicant and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

If the Corps determines that it has jurisdiction, the process would require the Corps to consult with the US Fish and Wildlife Service under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act for potential effects on Red-Legged Frogs and San Francisco Garter Snakes.

According to Costa, while this process will require just as much work as developing a Habitat Conservation Plan with the USFWS, the time to completion would be shorter.

A section 404 permit also requires a 401 Water Quality Certification, which is issued by the State Water Quality Control Board, via a Regional Water Quality Control Board; and, for projects such as Wavecrest that fall within the Coastal Zone, California Coastal Commission approval. Without either of these, the Section 404 authorization is invalid.