Vote on Holly-Seacliff Seen as Test of Landowner’s Power : Development: The Huntington Beach Co. goes before the City Council tonight to pitch its plan to develop 768 acres. Some officials see possible benefits for the city.

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  About 5 miles from the ocean, northwest of downtown, a vast tract of land sits undeveloped save a few bobbing oil pumps.

This area is called Holly-Seacliff, and it is historic land--the site of Huntington Beach’s first oil gusher in 1920. It also is environmentally sensitive because it adjoins the Bolsa Chica State Ecological Reserve.

Now there is a proposal to turn this 768-acre site into the biggest single development project in the city’s 86-year history. The Huntington Beach Co., the city’s largest and most influential landowner, tonight hopes to win City Council approval for a 15-year plan to develop the Holly-Seacliff tract.

The council, for its part, has said it hopes to extract a good deal for the city from the land developer.

“I think if we can get some final details worked out, this development agreement will be a major benefit to the city in the long run,” Mayor Thomas J. Mays said. “The city would get more fire and police services for that area, better water service and sewer service, several major road improvements. The city also would be getting land for the new Linear Park, one of the few regional parks in Orange County.”

Some residents, however, worry about locking the city into a 15-year contract with the Huntington Beach Co. The company and the city have had a symbiotic relationship since 1904, when the company took over the village of Pacific City, changed its name to Huntington Beach and began marketing residential lots.

The firm has been closely tied to the city’s politics ever since. Planning Commission Chairwoman Geri Ortega claims that the city remains dominated by the powerful land company, even though Huntington Beach now has a population of 180,000, a diverse economy, and other influential corporations--notably McDonnell Douglas--that are bigger and richer than the Huntington Beach Co.

Land company officials say that criticism such as Ortega’s distorts the truth. They say the Huntington Beach Co. has been, and remains, a good corporate citizen, seeking only fairness from city government.

However, Councilman Peter M. Green, who was elected without the company’s blessing, notes that as recently as January the Huntington Beach Co. demanded, and received, an immediate reversal of a City Council vote. That “flip-flop” vote on Jan. 8 came as the council was considering the general plan for Holly-Seacliff.

“Holly-Seacliff is very important to the Huntington Beach Co.,” says Ortega.

The Huntington Beach Co. owns about 80% of the land in Holly-Seacliff. The oil wells there are being phased out, and the company has plans to build 3,780 homes on the land. The proposed development agreement the council is to take up tonight would give the company the go-ahead for those plans.

City Administrator Michael Uberuaga, who took over as the city’s top manager last February, has been blunt in dealing with the Huntington Beach Co. proposal. He has told the City Council repeatedly, “We have no obligation to enter into a development agreement, and the city should not do so unless it is getting something it could otherwise not obtain.”

Uberuaga, however, believes that the city can get a favorable deal. He said he will recommend approving the agreement if the land company agrees to all his requirements. Uberuaga said last week that he was “adamant” that the agreement should not exclude the developer from any new city fees in the future. The Huntington Beach Co. officials originally had contended that the agreement should relieve the developer from new fees, but the revised contract to be considered by the City Council tonight now contains the land company’s assent to pay new fees.

The land company’s pledge to dedicate more parkland than state law requires of a developer is a major part of the proposed agreement.

The proposed agreement also would give the city a new police substation, a new fire station, a new water reservoir and extensive road improvements.

Mays said a major benefit would be the transformation of Holly-Seacliff itself.

“That area now is unsightly,” the mayor said. “Chevron (which wholly owns the Huntington Beach Co.) could leave the land the way it is for the next 10 to 15 years because oil prices have gone up. But with this agreement, we are getting the oil wells removed. Holly-Seacliff, when completed, is going to be one of the most beautiful areas in the city.”