Opinion:  Foothill Bypass, Part II: A legal (and literal) quagmire

Mike Ferreira is a former member of the Half Moon Bay City Council and a former member of the city’s Planning Commission.  This is the second part of a three-part article.

The Bayview/Foothill Bypass will not solve our traffic problems. It would most likely just move the Coastside’s traffic bottlenecks to new locations. But it also fails to solve the legal and environmental challenges that have stymied it in the past.

The original Bayview Drive alignment runs along the dividing line of two moribund subdivisions: Glencree occupies the northern third of the now-open space and Beachwood occupies the southern two-thirds. Glencree’s subdivision map has expired. And in 2005, a state appeals court upheld the city’s denial of a Coastal Development Permit to Beachwood because of wetlands which Beachwood had unsuccessfully argued as not being wetlands.  The state Supreme Court refused Beachwood’s appeal thereby making the decision final.

Although Bayview was dead and buried with the subdivisions it was to have served, it is now being exhumed and slightly realigned onto what at first glance appears to be slightly higher ground. My guess is that someone has selected one of the several wetland delineations that were conducted over time and has conjectured that this new meander would avoid wetlands. I have serious doubts that it would.

CCF infers that Bayview Drive could resurrect the Beachwood subdivision, and avoid a $30 million lawsuit by the developer through a settlement with the City. But the developer’s lawsuit is about refunds and claimed damages, not subdivision/wetlands.  The subdivision/wetland matter was decided by the courts as a function of state law, not as a function of the city’s discretion. The City must abide by the court rulings and cannot consent to a negotiated subdivision resurrection.

Any new project must start from scratch. There must be a new Coastal Development Permit application, a new Environmental Impact Report, and, unquestionably, a new wetland delineation. During recent years the criteria for wetland determination have become more inclusive, not less. Whatever may have been mapped before would most likely be expanded by a new delineation. And, due to the history of these parcels, the Coastal Commission would keep a sharp eye on the process. You can bank on that.

Meanwhile, the proposed Foothill Boulevard alignment behind the high school is inexplicably drawn right through the very wetland (officially delineated) that stalled the project in the 90’s. How does CCF think that would work? Surely, they must have talked to someone in City Hall with a vestige of institutional memory. Or did they?

And extending Foothill into and through Cypress Cove sure looks like cavalier treatment of those voters in Cypress Cove who thought the pro-development folks would deliver them from the traffic exiting a community park. Now they find themselves targeted for the traffic of a major thoroughfare. It’ll be interesting to see how that gets discussed. Especially since the attorney that was used to sue the City is one of the CCF’s founders.

 We shouldn’t be surprised to observe some strong objections from that neighborhood and I think they would have some quite credible legal positions which they could take, as well.