SEAL BEACH : Development Plan Worries Council

The red-hot debate over a proposed housing development around the Bolsa Chica Ecological Preserve spilled into neighboring Seal Beach, where City Council members gave the plan an ice-cold reception.

Fearing the project will increase traffic and harm the environment, council members on Monday urged residents to voice their views about the Koll Co. proposal to build up to 4,884 housing units at the corner of Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach.

“The impact for us is going to be tremendous. . . . It’s very disturbing,” said Councilwoman Marilyn Bruce Hastings, who agreed with colleagues that Seal Beach needs to monitor the project even though it is located more than a mile outside the city.

Among the most pressing fears was that the development’s new residents will drive through Seal Beach on the already busy Pacific Coast Highway and Seal Beach Boulevard to get to the San Diego Freeway. “With freeway access . . . this won’t affect Huntington Beach as much as it will affect Seal Beach,” said Mayor Gwen Forsythe.

She expressed concern about a tidal inlet that the developer seeks to build off the Bolsa Chica preserve. The inlet, designed to help restore wetlands, might exacerbate the sand-erosion problem that is eating away at some of the area’s coastline, Forsythe said.

As for the homes, Hastings questioned whether it was safe to build on land near the Newport-Ingelwood Fault that she said could experience liquefaction during an earthquake. Placing homes on the site might “risk the health and welfare” of the people who live there, she said.

Koll Vice President Larry Brofe disagreed. He said on Tuesday that the company plans to prevent possible liquefaction by compressing the soil to make it solid.

The tidal inlet, Brofe added, will have no bad affects on the sand along Seal Beach’s coast. And in response to the traffic concerns, he said the new residents will find it more convenient and quicker to catch the freeway through Huntington Beach than by taking Seal Beach roads.

The City Council doesn’t have a official voice in deciding whether to approve the development. However, council members said they planned to make their opinions clear to the various city and state governments and agencies that will decide the project’s fate.

The state Coastal Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, plus the Huntington Beach Planning Commission and City Council must approve the development, which would be built on vacant land ringing the largest active wetlands in Southern California.

An environmental impact report released this month concluded that the developer’s plan would restore some now-degraded wetlands and bring more privately held land into public use.

However, the report also stated that the development would bring more cars and more pollution and that some scenic views would be ruined.

Several environmental groups have opposed the Koll plan. They argue that the proposed project would bring too much development and not enough ecological protection.