Deal Would Enhance Bolsa Chica

Capping a three-decade battle by environmentalists to preserve the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Huntington Beach, state officials said Wednesday that the owner of a 102-acre parcel next to the marshlands had agreed to sell the land to California for $65 million.

The mesa, overlooking Pacific Coast Highway, will be added to the 1,200 acres of publicly owned wetlands that California is restoring.

“We have the wetlands and a major portion of the mesa,” said Shirley Dettloff, a former Huntington Beach mayor and board member of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, a longtime advocate for restoration. “It is an outcome the environmental community will be excited about and proud of.”

The deal must be approved by the state’s Wildlife Conservation Board when it meets Aug. 12 in Sacramento, said Al Wright, the board’s executive director. The three-member board is expected to endorse it, he said.

The state and the landowner, California Coastal Communities Inc. in Irvine, have negotiating since 2002, the year voters approved Proposition 50, which made $750 million available for conservation efforts statewide, including the purchase of mesa land in Bolsa Chica.

“The proposed transaction provides an opportunity to finally resolve over 30 years of controversy over the development of Bolsa Chica,” said Raymond J. Pacini, California Coastal Communities chief executive.

The company still has a proposal to build 379 homes on 105 acres east of the parcel, in an area known as the upper bench. The California Coastal Commission is expected to vote in early August on the development.

“[If the commission] approves our plan for the upper bench and the Wildlife Board approves our sale of the lower bench, we will achieve a reasonable compromise between responsible development and preservation,” Pacini said.

The state purchase of the lower mesa will likely mark the final chapter in the saga of Bolsa Chica, one of the state’s last remaining wetlands.

In the late 1970s, developers proposed building a marina, hotel and as many as 5,700 homes in the area, which had been a working oil field since World War II. The plan was opposed by preservationists and faded after several legal challenges.

In the early 1990s, 4,884 homes were proposed around 1,100 acres of wetlands. By 1996, the project had shrunk to 3,300 homes. A year later, the state paid $25 million for 880 acres. That parcel was added to 300 acres given to the state for wetlands preservation in 1973. The resulting Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve is the largest wetlands in Southern California.

In 2002, California Coastal Communities and its development partner, Hearthside Homes, won approval to develop the upper mesa.

The mesa, a tableland with grassland and eucalyptus trees, provides foraging grounds for raptors and habitat for reptiles and other animals, Dettloff said.

*

Times staff writer Dan Weikel contributed to this report.