Dan Walters: Tiny towns face big land fights

California's most enduring political conflict is over how and where land will be developed for housing, commercial services, employment and public facilities to serve the state's ever-expanding population.

Epic, years-long debates over water, flood protection, transportation and other major issues are merely subsets of the land use policy clash in arenas that include the Legislature, state agencies, city and county governments, the ballot initiative and, when all else fails, the courts.

When, for instance, the state's Delta Protection Commission last week turned down, for the second time, a highly controversial, county-approved housing project at the site of an old sugar beet mill in Clarksburg, it set the stage for a potential court battle.

As the Delta commission was testing its still-new land use powers, a bill was reaching the floor of the state Assembly involving another development battle in another tiny waterside hamlet, Half Moon Bay.

Thirty-plus years ago, the city approved housing developments on the landward side of Highway 1, some of which were built and some not. As it happened, one 36-acre parcel fronting on the highway was not developed, and to protect the developed subdivisions from seasonal flooding, the city rough-graded streets on the undeveloped parcel and installed a drainage system.

By and by, the undeveloped parcel reverted somewhat to nature and the city-graded depressions meant to become streets acquired the characteristics of wetlands, potentially placing them under the protection of the California Coastal Commission. And that's the rub.

In 2000, the city denied the landowner a development permit based on the wetlands condition and the owner sued, winning at the Superior Court level and losing in the state appellate court. The landowner then took the conflict to federal court, contending that the city was seizing the property without compensation and last year won a $41.1 million judgment – a potentially devastating financial blow to a village with a $10 million annual budget.

The landowner and the city agreed to an $18 million compromise and city officials also persuaded the local assemblyman, Democrat Gene Mullin, to introduce Assembly Bill 1991, which would allow the land to be developed as an alternative to paying $18 million. But the measure has become a land use icon with environmental organizations and the Coastal Commission in bitter opposition, saying it would create a loophole to thwart wetlands protections, despite the bill's language saying it's not a precedent.

The issue is clearly not this particular parcel, which is on a busy highway between two long-established subdivisions; rather, it's a skirmish in the big war over land use.

The bill reached the Assembly floor with Democrats divided and Republicans running a "drill," refusing to provide GOP votes unless substantial numbers of Democrats voted for it as payback for Democratic gamesmanship on a tax loophole for yacht purchases.

Finally, the measure cleared the Assembly on a 46-18 vote, with 28 Republicans voting for it and 30 Democrats either opposing it or refusing to vote. One of the abstainers was termed-out Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, who is locked into a tight primary battle for a state Senate seat with former Assemblywoman Fran Pavley. Pavley quickly issued a blast that "When California's coast needed protection this week, Lloyd Levine was AWOL."

The Senate will be a tougher arena. Half Moon Bay's senator, Democrat Leland Yee, is being coy about the measure, and the contending factions are fighting over whether it will be handled by the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, a bastion for environmentalists, or the Senate Local Government Committee, a friendlier venue.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters.