Take a Stand Over Banning Ranch
The 895 homes, 75-room hotel and a hostel planned would not be erected in our town, but in neighboring Newport Beach. Newport Banning Ranch LLC (comprising an oil company and investment firm) owns the 401-acre site and stands to make mega bucks if the project is approved by the California Coastal Commission. If the commission permits this development project, which includes continued oil drilling on 15 acres of the site, what’s that to us? Surely, we have our own beach issues to deal with.
The more I think about it, however, the more convinced I am that we in Laguna Beach have at least two compelling reasons to oppose Coastal Commission permitting of this development.
First, as Newport Beach and Laguna Beach are two South Orange County coastal communities facing similar challenges of urban runoff, habitat protection, and traffic congestion, Laguna’s opposition to the intended development project would likely be reciprocated by Banning Ranch Conservancy’s standing with those in our city when future local coastal preservation and access issues arise. Call it ecological reciprocity. The principle is real and effective. Perhaps the most striking example of it would be the 1989 Laguna Canyon Walk.
The impact of that dramatic coming together of Lagunans and numerous others from outside our city had much to do with propelling the effort to buy the canyon and save it from development. Outsider support may well have been indispensable in saving Laguna Canyon.
Similarly, by writing letters and speaking at the upcoming Coastal Commission hearing against the proposed development on the Newport coast the Banning Ranch Conservancy would likely stand with us before that commission in the future when we advocate for permitting/opposing projects along our coast. Such permitting projects might include extending the duration of the Marine Protection Areas in Laguna Beach, or restoring a once existing estuary near the mouth of Aliso Creek.
In today’s high stakes, high voltage clashes between wealthy and politically connected developer interests and environmentalists over vanishing coastal resources, ocean stewards must at times join together across city boundaries to preserve what’s left of the Southern California shore. Stopping the proposed Banning Ranch development is one of those times.
Second, in opposing the Banning Ranch development, Lagunans would be taking a major step in facilitating the eventual land purchase and opening of a nature park at the site, a nature site that our residents and their families could enjoy. So there is a viable alternative public use for the site, namely, the Banning Ranch Conservancy aims to transform and repurpose the oil-polluted brownfield into a public nature park and preserve replete with an estuary, seasonal pools, and an interpretive center or museum.
What about a compromise that would meet some of the vital interests (big profits for the developer and open space for environmentalists and residents) of the contending parties? That would mean Commission approval of the plan just described plus developer funding for the environmental cleanup of the site and provision for 310 acres of open space.
For the Banning Ranch Conservancy and its supporters like me that is too much development along our increasingly traffic congested, suburbanized, and industrialized coast. Keep in mind that there is only so much coast; once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. Future generations in our city and neighboring ones may well awaken one day and wonder how the coast disappeared. The answer is project by project, each with its vanguard of well-paid lobbyists all of whom were abetted by a public either too slow or distracted to act.
The Banning Ranch issue is slated for a final hearing in a September meeting of the Coastal Commission in Newport Beach. Speak in public comment at that meeting and/or send your view to the Commission at: coastal.ca.gov.
Tom Osborne authored “Pacific Eldorado: A History of Greater California,” and is writing a book on Peter Douglas’s career as executive director of the California Coastal Commission.
What if the people of Newport Beach and come together to oppose the Montage development, or The Ranch revival? Was the city of Laguna Beach in the position to purchase these properties and return them to open space?
Still, it is a noble cause to support these causes and I wish you luck.