Development Settlements Settled Little

From the Newport Coast to the Ballona wetlands near Marina del Rey, environmentalists have sued developers and won huge concessions--preservation of critical landscapes, dramatically reduced developments and even multimillion-dollar restoration projects. In return, however, some activists have negotiated away their most powerful weapon--their voice.

These lawsuit settlements were supposed to create compromise, ending decades of high-profile battles over controversial developments. But in some cases, they have become yet another flash point between activists and developers and created a schism within the environmental community. And deals signed more than a decade ago are still making headlines today as other groups challenge them.

Environmentalists who have signed such deals usually give up their right to oppose the compromise development and sometimes must actively support it. In one case, former opponents of the Ballona development would be required to testify in favor of the project and even publicly take issue with a new generation of critics.

Some environmentalists defend the deals, saying they are being pragmatic. While they may not be getting everything they want, they say, it’s better than the alternative. But others see it as dealing with the devil, often with far broader implications than the compromisers realize. They charge that such deals often have no expiration date, fail to allow room for changes in law and public attitudes, have a chilling effect on free speech, and can be used to harass grass-roots groups that operate on shoestring budgets.

“Someone came up with this idea, and it spread like wildfire,� said Mary Hudson, a land-use attorney from Sausalito. “It raises some real difficult problems, not the least of which is the specter of controlling the speech of future groups.�

Hudson confronted the problem last summer, when Friends of the Irvine Coast hired a hydrologist to study the Irvine Co.’s runoff management plans at Crystal Cove. Hudson advised the group not to let the hydrologist testify at a key California Coastal Commission meeting last summer for fear of violating pacts that settled lawsuits in 1987 and 1997.

In the 1987 settlement, the Irvine Co. agreed to leave 76% of Newport Coast’s nearly 10,000 acres untouched, eliminate office buildings and push hotels farther inland from Coast Highway. In 1997, the developer added 70 more acres of open space, setback parking from the highway and agreed to build fewer homes in some environmentally sensitive areas.

In return, Friends agreed not to oppose the company’s development plan as long as it conformed to the area’s local coastal program.

“We got a very good deal,� Pirkle says today. “We were concerned that we couldn’t talk about it, but we continue to feel we had made a good bargain.�

‘We Did the Best We Could’

Sara Wan, chairwoman of the Coastal Commission, said she can’t fault the groups for making deals, and there are usually other organizations willing to take up the challenge. But she said, “It stifles the public process; it’s very unfortunate.�

Laguna Greenbelt President Elisabeth Brown, a party to both settlements, said it pains her to drive on Pacific Coast Highway and see the earth scraped bare and the construction of so many houses on what were once green hills. But she asks, “What was the alternative? Something much worse, much more intense and inappropriate for that very special setting. We did the best we could.�

Pirkle adds that they are allowed to comment on some aspects of the project, but taking the chance with the hydrologist was too risky.

“One wouldn’t want to take a chance that [the Irvine Co.] interpret it a different way than we did,� she said. “We don’t like to get drawn into legal battles. Raising money is difficult or traumatic for groups like ours. They already have the staff and attorneys.�

Repeated efforts to reach Irvine Co. officials familiar with the pacts were unsuccessful.

Hudson declined to comment on the specifics of the Friends case but said the chance of violating a pact sometimes may not be worth speaking out.

“That is definitely a chilling effect--where the downside is so severe that even though you think you might be right, you can’t afford to take the risk,� she said.

Another Orange County environmental group that testified publicly after signing a pact has found itself back in court.

A confidential 1989 settlement agreement between the Amigos de Bolsa Chica and Bolsa Chica landowner Signal Landmark first became public this year--12 years after it was signed--when Signal tried to force their longtime environmental foe into arbitration to see if they violated the deal. A judge denied Signal’s request earlier this month, but the landowner plans to refile the petition.

Signal’s suit says the Amigos had agreed to end its lawsuit and to support a development plan for Bolsa Chica in exchange for $1.2 million to pay attorneys’ fees. The suit goes on to say that Amigos violated this deal by testifying at a November Coastal Commission meeting.

“This was a peace accord and they violated it,� said Signal attorney George Soneff of Santa Monica at a court hearing earlier this month.

But Amigos President Linda Moon said the group never agreed to support the developer forever, and that they agreed only to back a conceptual planning agreement known as the Coalition Plan that the developer abandoned four years later.

Moon declined to say how much the group is spending on legal fees. But she said Signal was using the dead deal as “a tool for harassment. . . . They’re trying to divert our energy and our finances and to muzzle us.�

In Los Angeles County, the Friends of the Ballona Wetlands have perhaps the most explicit quid pro quo agreement, billed as the end of a raging 14-year battle over the Playa Vista development proposal near Marina del Rey.

In 1990, in exchange for setting aside 269 acres of wetland and a $10-million wetland restoration deal that has since escalated to more than $13 million, the environmental group agreed not to oppose development that doesn’t impact the wetlands. They also promised to support former developer Maguire Thomas Partners orally and in writing before planning officials and the media, and to speak out against other environmentalists who question the wisdom of current development plans.

Current developer Playa Capital LLC stepped in in 1997, and plans to spend a total of $40 million on wetlands and riparian restoration.

Phase I of the project has been approved, and Phase II environmental documents are due by the end of the year. The 1,087 acres could one day include 13,000 homes and millions of square feet of commercial space. About half of the site will remain open space.

Accusation of Serving as Developer’s Shill

Friends of the Ballona Wetlands President Ruth Lansford insists the group has maintained its autonomy.

“One of the most important things is, we did not concede support for the project,� she said. “We agreed to support the project if and when we determined that it will not have an adverse effect on wetlands. We have not yet made that determination.�

Playa spokesman Coby King said, “Our understanding of the settlement agreement is that the Friends are bound to support the project only if Playa Vista keeps its promises.�

On the other hand, he added, “Playa Vista is putting $40 million into wetlands restoration and if they’re going to give this money to Friends of the Ballona Wetlands, it seems reasonable to ask if in fact restoration has a positive effect on the wetlands, Friends ought to support it.�

Other environmental groups, however, say Friends essentially has become a shill for the developer, and point to Lansford’s testimony at hearings and letters to the editor in newspapers defending the developer.

“It’s like they’ve sold their souls,� said Marcia Hanscom, executive director of the Wetlands Action Network.

Lansford said such accusations are grossly inaccurate. However, she said such lies and misinformation are the reason that Friends are in the midst renegotiating their 11-year-old agreement to exclude the provisions.

Regardless of which side one believes, the one unquestioned fact in the matter is that the Ballona settlement agreement has caused a deep, bitter schism in the local environmental community--a Friends center has been vandalized, activists have locked themselves to bulldozers and Lansford has even received death threats.

Daniel Cooper, an attorney with San Francisco-based Lawyers for Clean Water who represents Orange County CoastKeeper and other similar groups in the state, said even if a group has noble intentions, such pacts create the perception of secret deals and collusion.

Loud Arguments Over Agreeing to Silence

The most the “keeper� groups will do is agree not to publicly oppose, and even that causes much internal debate.

“It’s inconsistent with the purpose of an environmental organization to be silent on an issue,� he said. “It doesn’t make any sense.�

Christopher Stone, an environmental law professor at USC, said these deals are often contrary to an environmental group’s very purpose. “You’ve got organizations--the very purpose of which is to monitor and speak out--and they agree not to engage in the very function for which they have been established and for which they are being financed by people who make voluntary continuations. It really sounds bad,� he said. “And forced speech is all the worse.�

For developers, the deals that were meant to settle the disputes really haven’t done so. New groups pick up where the old ones left off, leading even some in the building community to question the pacts’ worth.

“There’s no certainty anymore,� said Laer Pearce, chairman of the public affairs committee of the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California. “You don’t know what the next environmental group is going to do. It’s really more important to us to have the broader community’s support behind our projects than to try to appease every splinter group.�