Shea Homes

An eroding levee in northeast Huntington Beach is a flood emergency and must be fixed now, county supervisors voted unanimously at their meeting this week. Supervisors authorized $8 million to $10 million to fix 3,800 feet of levee on the East Garden Grove-Wintersburg Channel, a stretch from Graham Street to its opening at Pacific Coast Highway. Orange County Flood Control District officials said the work would take about 75 days after a sped-up bidding process that could get things going by the end of the month.

Shea Homes, the Huntington Beach developer trying to build the controversial Parkside Estates housing development of up to 150 homes on land next to the Bolsa Chica, filed a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission two days before the most recent hearing on the company's request for a permit to build. The lawsuit, filed July 9 with Orange County Superior Court, accuses the commission of giving opponents of the project, like the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, more time than supporters.

I've been reading about Mark Bixby for the last few months. He's the computer engineer- cum-environmental activist who has spent the last five years walking softly and carrying a big camera, documenting one of the last significant open spaces in Huntington Beach (on the northeast border of the Bolsa Chica Wetlands). The 50 acres he patrols is called Parkside, and while Brea-based Shea Homes is looking to construct up to 150 homes here, Bixby (and others) are fighting the construction in the name of protecting precious coastal wetlands.

A Coastal Commission hearing next week for the Parkside Estates development in Huntington Beach has spurred a flurry of activity among opponents of the plan, including Bolsa Chica Land Trust members. The fate of 50 acres of the Parkside property, owned by Shea Homes, will be decided during the commission hearing. The area, which lies east of the Bolsa Chica mesa and is part of the wetlands ecosystem, is referred to as the Upper Bolsa Chica wetlands by trust members. The hearing is set to take place Tuesday at the Los Angeles Harbor Hotel in San Pedro.

A new flashpoint in the Bolsa Chica battles is emerging just as a bigger fight over the wetlands comes to a close. Landowner Don Goodell said the California Coastal Commission's approval of Hearthside Home's bid to build 349 homes on the upper mesa paves the way for residential development of his nearby parcel. Native American groups and the Bolsa Chica Land Trust have lobbied to preserve the six-acre site, sandwiched between Hearthside Homes and a smaller 50-acre lot owned by Shea Properties, arguing it's home to endangered species and a major archeological site.

Dave Brooks Councilman Don Hansen was the only member of the Huntington Beach City Council to raise any campaign money in the last six months, according to biannual contribution reports. Some of Hansen's contributors recently had business before the City Council, while other contributors will likely have business before the council in the next three-and-half-years Hansen is in office. All the money Hansen received was legally donated, and many of the contributors to Hansen's campaign regularly contribute to several political races in Huntington Beach.

Dave Brooks A parcel of land slated for a 171-unit residential development is now home to some unexpected visitors -- birds. American pipits, bushtits, cinnamon teals and Western sandpipers have descended on the 50-acre Graham Street parcel, between Slater and Warner avenues, after historic winter rains turned the agricultural field into a huge pond and birding area. The presence of water, and the subsequent bird visitors, has re-energized an environmental debate often overshadowed by the property's larger neighbor to the south, the Bolsa Chica Mesa.

Jenny Marder The fate of the highly contested Parkside Estates is now in the hands of the California Coastal Commission. It has taken five long years to get this far and developer Shea Homes president, Les Thomas, predicts that an approval by the commission will take at least a year. The proposed Parkside Estates would build 170 single-family homes on 35 1/2 acres on Graham Street south of Kenilworth Drive in southeast Huntington Beach. Plans designate the remaining land in the 50-acre lot as a public park.

We're just not ready to make Bolsa offer Don't you just love how both Lucy Dunn of Hearthside Homes and Ron Metzler of Shea Homes gleefully boast, "No one's ever made an offer" to buy their respective company's property on the Bolsa Chica? Well, duh, no one's made an offer. Do you think a current, fair market value appraisal has been done for either property? You wouldn't buy a new home without checking comparable prices on nearby homes, getting an appraisal of the home's worth, or completing a home inspection, would you?

Paul Clinton The California Coastal Commission is investigating a claim from a local environmental group that developer Shea Homes is improperly removing wetlands habitat from the proposed site of Parkside Estates. The Neighbors for Wintersburg Wetlands Restoration, based in Huntington Beach, brought the charges against the developer of the proposed 170-home project after members of the group noticed what they say was the destruction of wetlands vegetation.