Half Moon Bay and Wavecrest settle lawsuit

The city of Half Moon Bay and Wavecrest Village LLC have settled a lawsuit [PDF] brought by Wavecrest nearly two years ago, following special meeting of the City Council at 7:30 this morning.

The Wavecrest project has been a source of friction within the community for years. See Coastsider’s chronology of the project for details.  Two years ago, the city found the developer to be in default of its development agreement. Wavecrest sued the city over this, and the parties came to an agreement last summer.

According to the settlement, not much was changed by the lawsuit.  Neither party pays anything to the other, each absorbs their own legal fees, the city brings Wavecrest’s Compliance Certificates up to date. The city and Wavcrest may explore alternative locations for the middle school and the Boy’s and Girl’s Club without violating the agreement.  Both parties agreed to give one another three days notice before communicating with any public agencies.  The agreement leaves unresolved their continuing disagreement over the meaning of some aspects of the 1999 Development Agreement.

The city had already reached a temporary agreement with the developer just over a year ago, but it had become stalled by the discovery of endangered species habitat on the site.

In a prepared press release Mayor Grady said "We were able to resolve our differences so that we could all get on with the business of getting the project processed through the Coastal Commission appeal."  On behalf of Wavecrest Bill Barrett said "We are glad to be able to put this disagreement behind us, and we look forward to working cooperatively with the City to achieve a viable project that delivers the public benefits that the parties want to realize from this project."

Why hold the meeting early on Monday? Council Member Mike Ferreira said both sides faced additional daily legal expenses beginning today.

While Mayor Grady and Council Member Ferreira acted as the council’s committee on the matter, everyone on the council was involved in the process.  Grady praised the late hours and weekend work of City Attorney Adam Lindgren along with Wavecrest’s Bruce Russell. He also singled out Council Member Toni Taylor for her contributions, "She’s a tough boss when it comes to protecting the City’s interests."

UPDATE:  I’ve added a link to a copy of the settlement agreement, which is six pages long. It refers to exhibits, which I don’t have yet. This story has been edited to add details to the description of the terms and the history of the settlement.

ADDENDUM: Coastsider now has the development agreement between the city of Half Moon Bay and Wavecrest Partners LLC [PDF], thanks to the good folks at SanMateo.org.  The document, dated August 31, 1999, is 46 pages long and 8.7MB in size.  Note: a few of the pages are out of order in the scan, including pages 14 and 15.