Half Moon Bay wins big wetlands case against Beachwood

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.