The city of Half Moon Bay has won a huge legal victory in a case that hinged on the definition of wetlands in its Local Coastal Plan. Wednesday, a state Appeals Court upheld the city’s interpretation of its LCP [PDF] in a struggle that has been going on since 1990. The result is that the Beachwood subdivision, which was to be built in the vacant lot between Terrace Ave. and Grandview Blvd. will likely never be developed as it was envisioned.

The case, [em]Yamagiwa v. City of Half Moon Bay CA[/em], came down to a pretty technical point—whether the city’s definition of wetlands in its Local Coastal Plan meant that the presence of "hydrophytic" (adapted to water) plants alone was sufficient to make a property wetlands, or whether the soil also had to be "hydric" (characterized by considerable moisture).

It was a classic lawyerly case of "Does this mean ‘and’ or does this mean ‘or’?"

The path to this decision was long and complex.

The city approved a subdivision of the 24-acre property into 85 lots in 1990. But the actual development was put on hold from 1991 to 1998 by a sewer moratorium. Toward the end of the moratorium, Beachwood applied for a Coastal Development Permit (CDP).  By law, a community can’t issue CDP’s until it has an approved LCP. Half Moon Bay’s LCP was approved in 1996.

In 2000, the city declined to approve a CDP for Beachwood because the water table was high enough for enough of the year to support wetlands plants. The Coastal Commission supported this interpretation of the LCP.

This led to a complex series of lawsuits and appeals that wound up before the state Appeals Court. Many of the issues were procedural. But the main issue was always whether the property met the LCP’s definition of wetlands. Wednesday, the court accepted the city’s and the Coastal Commission’s interpretation of the LCP’s wetlands definition, essentially saying that Beachwood was picking nits.

In order to satisfy ourselves of the proper interpretation, we must take our lens of review to a wider angle.  We must view this wetland definition not in isolation, but in the context of the LCP as a whole.
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evidence that hydrophytes exist on a property to a degree permitting jurisdictional wetland determination renders unnecessary any additional evidence of wetland hydrology or hydric soils.

This decision is also significant for the unincorporated Coastside, because the city’s LCP is based on the county’s.

The result is that this land, which was originally planned for 85 lots, and for which the commission at one point was willing to approve 27 lots, may remain undeveloped. Or a much smaller portion may be targeted for development. Short of reversal by the state Supreme Court, Beachwood will have to begin the process with the city from scratch.

Beachwood says the city assessed them $550,000 for drainage improvements, $900,000 for sewer improvements, and required Beachwood to spend $300,000 to widen Highway 1. The court determined that any money that Beachwood spent improving the property for development doesn’t give them a right to complete the project, because they didn’t have a valid building permit or Coastal Development Permit. However, Beachwood may try to recover part of their costs from the city.

The seven most recent comments posted by readers to Coastsider are now listed in the left-hand navigation bar.  Each comment includes the username of the poster, the first 20 words of the post, the date and time it was posted, and a link to the article on which it was posted.

This should be a big help in keeping track of what people are saying on the site, and I expect that it will increase the number of comments posted. I know that a number of users have been looking for a better way to keep track of new comments posted to the site.

Remember: you have to be a registered user to post your own comments. Now would be a good time to register.

Let us know what you think. Post your feedback as a comment on this story, and see it appear in the recent comments list.

ADDENDUM: Your comment will appear immediately on the story.  It will take about 10 minutes for it to appear in "Recent comments".

We’ve modified the news feed we’re getting from the Mercury News. Instead of their top stories, we’re now running their Central Coast news feed.

Because the Merc is owned by the same company as the Monterey County Herald, the feed carries authoritative stories. Because it’s the Merc, we’re getting those stories that are of most interest to those of us in the Bay Area.

On Tuesday, the feed carried information on Felton’s vote on buying its water system from Cal-Am and a story about the problems caused by antiquated subdivision maps in Spreckels. Both stories have a Coastside angle.

In a strong show of support for public ownership of water, the town of Felton (near Santa Cruz) overwhelmingly passed Measure W, authorizing a bond of up to $11M to buy the local water system.

German-owned California American Water insists that the system is not for sale.  They said the same thing about the Montara water system purchased by the Montara/Moss Beach community in 2003.

Santa Cruz County supervisors have the power to acquire the system through eminent domain.  The supervisors voted 5-0 in May to place Measure W on the ballot.

Jim Graham, a spokesman for Felton FLOW, a grass-roots community group organized to work for locally-owned water, said,  "Despite Cal-Am’s attempts to rewrite state law, attack us with frivolous lawsuits and otherwise influence the outcome, the people of Felton have spoken: water is a basic human right, not a commodity, and we’re ready to fight for it."

Click "read more" for vote counts and background links.

The Senate passed a bill that would add 4,500 acres—including Rancho Corral de Tierra surrounding Moss Beach and Montara— to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  The Peninsula Open Space Trust bought the property save it from development and has agreed to sell it for half what they paid for it.

The House of Representatives must now pass a similar bill by Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, before they can be signed.

We’ll be running more information on Coastal Cleanup Day as the day approaches, but right now I just wanted an excuse to run this graphic. From the press release:

Coastal Cleanup Day is the highlight of the California Coastal Commission’s year ‘round Adopt-A-Beach program and takes place every year on the third Saturday of September, from 9 a.m. to Noon. In 2005, that day falls on September 17.

Coming at the end of the summer beach season and right near the start of the school year, Coastal Cleanup Day is the kick-off event for Coastweeks—three weeks of coastal and water-related events for the whole family.

A Monterey County judge is wrestling with the validity of an "antiquated" subdivision map.  The county and a developer are all set to go with a developement that will increase by 40% th size of Spreckels, which the Mercury News describes as "a Norman Rockwell factory town just south of Salinas".

Local activists aren’t so sure.  The case hinges on whether a 1907 subdivision map is valid. The state Supreme Court has ruled that subdivisions before 1893 are invalid, but it left open how to deal with those created betwen 1893 and 1929.  This case is expected to be be appealed to a higher court.

San Francisco attorney Matthew Francois and Dennis LeClere, deputy Monterey County counsel, argued vehemently Wednesday that the 1907 subdivision map was legal under the 1893 law and thus still valid.

But Santa Cruz attorney Jonathan Wittwer, representing the Spreckels homeowners and LandWatch, argued that because the county didn’t have the discretion to say no to the 1907 map, it did not create "legal lots of record.’‘

California’s purchase of development rights to the Hearst Ranch in San Luis Obispo county was expensive—$235 in cash and tax credits—and controversial.  The Mercury News got a look at the appraisal and wrote a report. Interestingly, it’s not really clear from the story who got the best deal, but it definitely looks like Hearst drove a hard bargain.

The appraisal concluded that Hearst had enough legal lots, water and road access to build luxury homes on the site.  The report said that Hearst was considering dividing its land into 43 mini-ranches of 1,000 acres each.

The coast of land on the Coastside figured into the transaction price.

Some were close to the ocean, like the 1,255-acre Bixby Ranch in Big Sur—once owned by Allen Funt of "Candid Camera’’—that sold for $24.4 million in 2001 to the Trust for Public Land. Others were farther inland, like Rancho Corral de Tierra, a 4,262-acre parcel near Half Moon Bay that sold for $29.7 million in 2001 to the Peninsula Open Space Trust.

Based on those sales, Carney divided Hearst Ranch into three zones: 3,989 acres nearest the ocean he valued at $22,000 an acre; 44,716 acres of foothills at $4,000 an acre; and 32,958 acres of steep, remote land at $2,500 an acre. He subtracted what Hearst would keep—ranch land for grazing, the 27 new homes and the new hotel—to arrive at the $230 million unused development value.

One of the beautiful aspects of Pedro Point is its relaxing setting. Unfortunately, development is now threatening to destroy the tranquility.  The property at 315 San Pedro, Pacifica [Google satellite map] is now for sale. You may know it as the flat field where the llamas hang out.
You can see the listing yourself at http://www.californiamoves.com/property/propertysearch.aspx. In "Quick Search" enter the number "292178" then click GO button.

This 5.5 acres is zoned C-2 Commercial. This type of zoning allows for the building of hotels, retail comercial, automobile sales and services, electrical substation, RV park, poultry slaughtering, etc. Virtually everything under the sun. At $7,000,000 it would take a substantial development to get the return on the investment.

You can find the permitted uses and developmental regulations in the zoning section of the Pacifica municipal codes at Lexis-Nexis.
Needless to say this could substantially change the character of Pedro Point.

Terry Farrell is the first member of the Half Moon Bay Horseshoe Club to capture a First Place Men’s Class Championship.  Farrell is a resident of Redwood City, who ran an appliance repair business in Half Moon Bay for many years before he retired. Club member Charlie Hall says, "Terry is a fairly new Member of a couple years but has taken to Horseshoes like a duck to water."

Since the 1987 beginning of the Club, the only other world title went to B.J. Terry, who won a C Class Junior Championship in 1988.