Just about anyone who has lived between Pacifica and Pescadero for more than a few years can site the pros or cons of these projects. Depending on the perspective, each could provide much needed housing or amenities, increase the jobs housing imbalance, strain infrastructure, provide tax dollars, drain local government budgets, preserve or destroy the fragile Coastside environment.
There is no doubt, however, that if these projects are built they will forever change the face of the coast.
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Yet, as any elder statesmen of Half Moon Bay will tell you, battles over the fate of these developments are just the latest in a seemingly endless war between environmentalists and developers that make our recent national election drama look like a second rate mini-series.
Dreams of Ticky Tacky Houses
Half Moon Bay, as we know it, has been on the brink of evolution and extinction since World War II.
As with many other metropolitan areas, the Bay Area had a suburban explosion after the war. The baby boomers were on their way, and their newlywed parents needed homes for their new families.
Realizing this market, Bay Area developers like Henry Doelger quickly jumped at the opportunity to develop San Mateo County. As Alan Hynding said in his book From Frontier to Suburb: The Story of the San Mateo Peninsula, "Almost any change seemed justifiable for the sake of civic progress, industry, jobs and a rising standard of living."
The San Francisco-born Doelger, who in 1945 began developing Daly City into what it is today, set his eyes on Pacifica as his next playground. Between 1950 and 1955, Doelger's efforts caused Pacifica to grow from a population of 3,000 to 15,000. Two years before incorporation, Pacifica had to quickly build schools, a water system and a larger sewer plant among other amenities to accommodate the burgeoning population.
As developers turned their eyes south, they believed the next property acquisition would be their true gold mine. From 1890 to 1950, the small farming and fishing town of Half Moon Bay and its surrounding area had a population of just a few thousand, with plenty of undeveloped land to spare.
But Half Moon Bay didn't turn out to be as easy a conquest as its neighbor to the north. The local townspeople witnessed the fate of Pacifica and decided that they wanted to have a say in the area's growth. In 1959, residents voted to incorporate Half Moon Bay to establish local control.
Deane and Deane Inc., the next big player in the game, bought over 8,000 acres of Half Moon Bay from Doelger in 1969 to grab the gold.
According to some, Doelger realized that Half Moon Bay was no Pacifica.
"Henry Doelger sold over 8,000 acres of land because he saw the coastal initiative coming," Coastside County Water District Superintendent David Meir said of the Coastal Act. "(Deane and Deane) bought it for a nickel and a dime."
"He eventually sold it because he saw the handwriting on the wall," said 82-year old environmentalist Olive Mayer.
Deane and Deane soon fell upon hard times, and found financial backing from the Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Company.
Westinghouse and Deane and Deane picked up where Doelger had left off, and sought to move forward with their predecessor's grand plans.
According to a 1970 article from the Bay Guardian, Westinghouse and Deane and Deane presented the Half Moon Bay City Council with a plan to turn the 2,000 population town into a city of 160,000 people. Including the unincorporated Coastside, projections at the time estimated that the Coastside population would reach 235,000 by 1985.
Many predicted that the project would have easily passed through the city's planning process because, as the article stated, "there's little reason to believe the town council won't agree."
As a part of the development plan, developers pushed for the expansion of Highway 92, Highway 84 and Highway 1 from two lanes to six and eight lanes at the taxpayers' expense, recalled Mayer.
"The whole thing was planned for maximum development," said Mayer, a 47-year local member of the Sierra Club.
But these grand plans were soon turned on their heads.
There's a whole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza...
The first problem for developers was that the area lacked the infrastructure to support the housing, or in the words of the conservationist Half Moon Bay City Councilman Dennis Coleman, they lacked "the legs of the stool that residential development rests on."
These legs include sewer, water and roads. The Coastside has come up short on water and road capacity since the 1960s. In the 1970s, sewer followed suit.
Westinghouse and other developers had a tough time getting enough water for their developments because that size of capacity had never existed on the coast, and they weren't willing to finance its creation.
"Water was a big problem," said Neighbor's Alliance President David Iverson. "The San Francisco Water District was reluctant to release water to a lot of jurisdictions. There were also limitations to how they could get water from Crystal Springs - they didn't have a pipeline"
The pipeline from Crystal Springs Reservoir to the coast wasn't completed until 1994.
Compounding the problem was the draught that occurred between 1976 to 1979 that caused the Coastside County Water District to place moratoriums on water connections, according to Mier.
In 1976, Citizens Utilities stopped issuing water connections to the unincorporated areas of the north coast that weren't served by CCWD. Developers have had to instead drill wells in order to supply their homes with water.
In 1979, the Half Moon Bay, Granada and Montara sanitary districts began imposing moratoriums on non-priority sewer connections. This slowed major residential development on the coast for nearly two decades.
"The developers didn't want to pay for it," said Committee for Green Foothills lobbyist Lennie Roberts of a new water and sewer systems.
Some developers agreed.
"It could've been done, but I don't know who would want to do it," Ocean Colony President Bill Barrett said. "It wasn't a practical thing as far as the expense to reward ratio."
"There weren't the market conditions to justify those water and sewer developments at that time," said William Crowell, developer of the Beach House Inn and the proposed Beachwood subdivision.
And as for the six to eight lane highways, Ronald Reagan can get credit for putting a dent in those plans. In a decision in 1972, California governor Reagan signed legislation that eliminated the proposed Pacific Coast Freeway plan that would have added up to four lanes to Highway 1 from Half Moon Bay to San Juan Capistrano.
Yet, the bill didn't prevent the expansion of Highway 92.
This freeway expansion was held up by the developers' second problem - local conservationists.
Get up, stand up. Stand up for your rights...
In 1967, Mayer and three other local Girl Scout leaders formed a group they called the "Wednesday hikers" to lead small hiking groups through the Coastside trails. The Wednesday hikers, La Honda's LIFE, a group from El Granada and a group from Montara viewed Westinghouse and Deane and Deane's plans as a threat to the coastal environment they valued. So, they decided to act.
"We had a lot of organizations down the coast," Mayer said. "We all joined together. We knew the land and we knew what (the developers) were talking about.
"We were out gathering signatures and petitions and telling people what the plans were to destroy the coast."
Battle after battle, the no-growth environmentalists spoke at government meetings, wrote letters and lobbied their legislators.
Victories for environmentalists included the establishment of Montara State Beach, stalling the expansion of highways 92 and 84, several open space purchases, holding up the development of a large restaurant on the coastal bluff at Miramontes Point, saving Pescadero Marsh and Ao Nuevo and stopping the construction of the dam at Pescadero Creek which would have supplied water for 135,000 people.
Environmentalists contested several projects by meeting with the developers face to face. Meyer met with Westinghouse CEO Donald Burnham at his home in Pittsburgh. After having dinner with Burnham, Mayer presented her case to the company's board of directors along with photographs and maps. The board countered with photographs of their developments in Florida.
"That was the beginning of the breakdown of Westinghouse," Meyer said. "Westinghouse decided they weren't going ahead with this thing and they gradually took steps to sell portions of the land."
Despite these grassroots actions, some developers persevered with the Half Moon Bay City Council, which environmentalists considered to be in the pockets of developers.
"These developers were so powerful and the Half Moon Bay government was just awful," Meyer said. "They were so dedicated to development."
Developers were able to get permits to build many Half Moon Bay subdivisions in 1970s, including Sea Haven, Frenchman's Creek, De Anza Beach, Casa Del Mar, and the Alpha Beta Shopping Center.
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In 1972, Californians dealt local developers a third blow, the one Doelger had forecasted, when they passed an initiative that was to become known as the Coastal Act. This act gave the Coastal Commission the authority over any developments in the coastal zone, which is up to five miles inland in some areas.
According to Coastal Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas, with the adoption of the Coastal Act in 1976 by the state legislature, the Coastal Commission gained jurisdiction over the entire city of Half Moon Bay. Until the city was able to enact their Local Coastal Program (LCP) in 1996, all applications for coastal development permits went through the Coastal Commission.
"Because they didn't have an LCP, the whole idea was to hold the line and not make obsolete what is in the plan," Douglas said. "They had to hold the status quo and, by and large, I think that is what happened."
Nevertheless, the Coastal Commission became an arena for lawyers, environmentalists, developers and interest groups to argue their case.
"It was very intense," Douglas recalls. "The Coastal Commission staff was recommending very limited development to protect agricultural lands."
Half Moon Bay, on the other hand, complained that "they were a city and intended to build out."
The Coastal Commission often struck out a middle ground, and development remained limited.
The Coastal Act was then bolstered by Governor Jerry Brown, who was elected in 1974 and again in 1978.
"Jerry Brown appointed really good people," Mayer said. "He took one of our leading conservationists here and made her secretary of the resources agency and he strengthened the Coastal Commission. He really saved this Coastside."
With these political and legal obstacles in place, Half Moon Bay became a headache for developers. The dream to create a new Daly City faded away. Developers with grand plans, such as Westinghouse, caved in.
The harder they come, the harder they fall
"There was not a market for the plan Westinghouse had," Crowell said. "I don't think people were willing to commute to San Francisco. Certainly not to the magnitude of Doelger's plan."
In 1985, Westinghouse sold off about 6,000 acres of its 8,200 original purchase to Corrado McComas of McComas Properties in partnership will Bill Barrett. Three years later, McComas and Barrett again divided the property for sale.
McComas sold 3,000 acres for Cowell Ranch, and 1600 acres to two other Coastside ranches, and 67 acres for North Wavecrest. The partners also sold 300 acres to Keet Nerhan's KN Properties and nearly 400 acres to Ocean Colony Partners for South Wavecrest and Ocean Colony subdivision.
While this property was changing hands, the Half Moon Bay City Council was in the process of creating the city's LCP. Rather than comforting environmentalists, most feared the Coastal Act would be weakened in the council's hands.
"Oh, (the City Council) was pro-development. They were in the pockets of the developers," recalled Iverson of the council that drafted the LCP in 1985.
Smaller scale development, however, did occur.
For example, the City Council approved the 1065 home subdivision, Ocean Colony, in the 1980's of which only 550 homes will be built when completed.
The dam at Dennison Creek was constructed. The City Council approved the Beach House Inn and the Ritz Carlton. Also, in the late eighties, houses began to spring up rapidly in the Alsace Lorraine, Terrace Avenue and Highland Park neighborhoods.
Fire on the mountain...
Infrastructure, nevertheless, continued to limit development.
Aside from adding passing lanes on Highway 92 and lanes at the intersection of Main Street, no Coastside highways have been expanded to date.
Highway 1 has remained two lanes from Pescadero to Pacifica.
County voters passed Measure T in 1996 to force CalTrans to abandon plans for a four-lane bypass over Devil's Slide and instead get the state agency to build a tunnel through Montara Mountain. Preservationists on the coast, who sponsored the measure, said this solution would preserve the mountain while limiting the size of the highway.
In 1996, the Sewer Authority Midcoast got approval to move forward with the expansion of its sewer treatment plant. The expansion of the plant, which treats sewage for the three Coastside sewer districts, was finally completed in 1999.
But the lack of sewer hook-ups from the 1980s on halted major developments such as Pacific Ridge, Beachwood and Wavecrest from the time they received the city's tentative approval in the late 1980s and early 1990s until connections became available again in 1999.
CCWD placed another moratorium on water connections because of a draught in the late 1980s that lasted until the early 1990s.
But tension on the system eased in 1994, when the CCWD built a pipeline from the coast to the Crystal Springs Reservoir, which completed a portion of the water delivery system expansion project.
The remaining projects in the expansion, however, have been placed on hold pending an appeal to the Coastal Commission. The appeal contends that the project proposes to add more capacity than is required to accommodate city and county build-out numbers, and as such is growth inducing.
"It is a very difficult environment to develop in," Barrett said. "It takes a lot patience." Barrett himself has been on the coast for 15 years, half of which he said there was an effective moratorium on building because of lack of sewer and water.
But a new factor seems to have emerged that might finally put an end to the Cold War.
"Gradually, the nature of Half Moon Bay changed," Meyer said. "There were a lot of young people moving in. There were a lot of people that realized what they had and wanted to keep it that way."
Environmentalists like April Vargas and Rich Gordon moved into high political ranks. Dennis Coleman and Debbie Ruddock, proclaimed no-growthers, gained seats on the majority pro-growth Half Moon Bay City Council. The Coastal Commission has become more strict in its protection of the environment ever since Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was elected in 1998 and the state Supreme Court tightened provisions in the Coastal Act its 1999 Bolsa Chica ruling.
Moreover, in 1999 Coastside voters elected three preservationist directors to the five member CCWD board. The new board president, Carol Cupp, initially filed the appeal of the CCWD expansion project to the Coastal Commission.
This board has also issued warnings to developers of the Wavecrest Village, Moss Beach Highlands and other projects that they may not have enough capacity to serve water to them.
And finally, voters passed two growth control measures, Measure A in 1998 and Measure D last year, the latter which limited growth in Half Moon Bay to 1 percent a year.
(hed)
Since the 1999 election, Coastside voters have placed preservationists in control of the Half Moon Bay City Council, along with the water, sewer, and advisory boards. These powerful no-growthers have spearheaded campaigns to control development through both planning infrastructure, as illustrated by the growth control measures and the success of the tunnel initiative.
Coastal Commission decisions, as well as the Bolsa Chica ruling, have only bolstered environmentalist's resolve. The Coastal Commission has recently appeared to side with local environmentalists on major Coastside developments.
Commission staff, like local environmentalists, sighted infrastructure as one of the major obstacles to its approval of residential development in Half Moon Bay.
Lack of road capacity is one reason why staff recommended that the Coastal Commission deny the Pacific Ridge subdivision when it holds a hearing on the project today.
The Coastal Commission's staff has also cited concerns about the impact of wetlands on the Pacific Ridge property. Similarly, the Half Moon Bay City Council voted unanimously to deny the Beachwood subdivision because of its impact on wetlands.
If both these projects are denied, it will wipe 225-houses off city plans.
Now, with a pro-environmental CCWD and Coastal Commission, only two City Council seats separate the no-growthers from total control over development. And with Naomi Patridge and Jerry Donovan in their last terms, this next election could be a breaking point for developers.
If Half Moon Bay remains as is, with some of the most valuable open land in California, if not the county, coastsiders can be sure this fight will continue. And, as history shows, both sides are highly experienced in the war over development.
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