Saving the Bright Land

California's freewheeling real estate developers, even more than their colleagues to the east, have long been accustomed to building just about anything that would turn a profit. When their plans are good--at the vacation community of Sea Ranch, for example, or the "new town" of Valencia--they set a standard of originality and excellence for the nation. When the plans are bad, which is all too often, they result in garish commercial strips, sleazy subdivisions and industrial parks that have already turned much of the once bright land into a gray blur.

Now the ground rules are changing --and radically. The first shock to developers came last September, when the state supreme court ruled on a case called Friends of Mammoth Mountain v. Mono County. The issue was whether the "spirit" of California's Environmental Quality Act of 1970, which requires state agencies to publish detailed reports on the environmental "impact" of their projects, also applied to private developers. The court, which has often acted as a trail blazer for other states, answered unequivocally: "To limit the operation of the E.Q.A. solely to what are essentially public works projects would frustrate the effectiveness of the act." Then the judges went on to excoriate "those who are oblivious to the ecological well-being of society." In other words, the slipshod developers.

Though the state supreme court left the precise definition of environmental impact to the state planning commission and to later court decisions, private developers will presumably have to consider such things as sewage treatment, the preservation of green space and even pure aesthetics before sending their bulldozers onto the land. Local authorities were supposed to start enforcing the decision, so the mayor of San Jose declared a temporary freeze on all new building permits in his city. Los Angeles warned all builders that they could proceed only at their own risk. Big home-building companies like Transamerica and the Larwin Group Inc. postponed major projects, which raised some questions about the economic impact of the environmental-impact decision. Said Lieutenant Governor Ed Reinecke: "Hundreds of millions of dollars of construction are being stopped."

Preserving Shores. While the Mammoth decision was creating these mammoth problems, the state's voters approved an initiative to control all development within 1,000 ft. of California's entire coastline. To continue any project started after last March 31, or to build any new project, developers would first have to get a permit from one of six new regional commissions. This slows the rush to build on the shore line--and theoretically prevents any environmentally harmful projects.

Some leading builders accept the new rules for good business reasons. "In the long run," says Haywood Elliott, president of the lending institution of Sutro Mortgage Investment Trust, "the development that gives a place to beauty and pleasant environment certainly enhances the value of a project." Barbara Sayre Casey, vice president of the home-building firm of Kaufman & Broad, adds: "Every builder is now in the same position. If you did an environmentally sound job that cost you more, you were penalized. Someone could go across the street, do a cheap job and undersell you."

Other builders expect to fight the rules in the state legislature, a place notable in the past for its indifference to land use. In fact, the legislators recently "clarified" the court decision with a law that delays its effect until April 5 and excuses projects currently under way from filing any environmental statements at all.

Fighting the new coastal requirements will be more difficult, though one Californian is making a spectacular try in court. Rudolph Esau, a partner in the Santa Barbara chrysanthemum-growing firm of Marina Mums Inc., explains that his plans to build greenhouses on his shoreline property are stymied by the new rules. "If we cannot develop our property," he reasons, "then our property is not worth anything to us." His class action therefore seeks full compensation from the state for all private-property owners up and down the coast: $509.1 billion worth of land. More realistic opponents are trying to control the membership of the coastal commissions themselves. But so are conservationists. Meantime, developers are rushing to get their future projects approved by local authorities before the new rules take effect. In Sacramento, Sierra Club Lobbyist John Zierold, watching the number of building applications soar to record levels, says, "We just have to grit our teeth and bear it."

Further questions loom in the future. What would happen, for example, if a hideously ugly project did no physical harm to the environment? Or what if a developer candidly admitted that his project would harm the environment, but the local authorities approved it anyway? Experts already are talking of three or four "generations" of suits and struggles over this most basic environmental issue, the use of the land.

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