Hearing on Planned Homes Near Crystal Cove Delayed

State officials Wednesday delayed a key hearing so they have time to examine a new Irvine Co. proposal for handling runoff that some fear threatens the pristine beach at Crystal Cove State Park.

The California Coastal Commission, meeting in Santa Monica, was due to decide if Orange County planning officials improperly approved the Irvine Co.’s plans for handling runoff from a proposed 635-home project above the park and whether the county-approved development permit violates the area’s state-approved coastal plan. The developer requested the postponement because it submitted an altered runoff diversion proposal Monday.

Commission Chairwoman Sara Wan said the delay is needed to resolve concerns about the project’s effects on erosion, water quality and wildlife habitat.

“What we want to do is get something in front of us . . . that we can move forward on,” Wan said.

The main obstacle to action on the project has been diversion of urban runoff--the fertilizers, chemicals and pollutants that are swept off streets and lawns into storm drains and eventually the ocean. Environmentalists and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency worry that the project’s runoff would harm protected waters and reefs off Crystal Cove.

The company’s plans for the runoff from the controversial housing project between Laguna Beach and Corona del Mar have changed considerably. Originally, runoff would have flowed down Los Trancos and Muddy Canyon creeks, across the state beach and into the ocean.

About two weeks after a Coastal Commission vote in October to hold a hearing on the county permit, the Irvine Co. announced it would divert summer flows into a sewer system, place filters in catch basins, use street-cleaning vacuum machines, install detention basins to catch storm flows and add other measures.

But in December, the commission’s staff recommended denying the permit because of the placement of a detention basin in Muddy Canyon Creek, which is within a a protected environmentally sensitive habitat area. The basin would have held runoff during periods of heavy rain to prevent a rush of water from eroding the beach and polluting the ocean.

The area’s coastal plan requires that development be 50 feet away from sensitive habitat streams and that detention basins be within development areas or tributary drainages--not major streams.

In the new proposal, that basin is replaced by six others--two in the 635-home development and four on adjacent Irvine Co. land, said Carol Hoffman, an Irvine Co. vice president.

Environmentalists say the new proposal is closer to being acceptable but say they need to study it.

Garry Brown of Orange County CoastKeeper said he was pleased by the commission’s decision to seek more engineering and geological review. But he remained concerned that no analysis of the project’s overall effects has been made because regulatory approvals have been sought in stages.

The scope of the project--2,600 homes along the Newport Coast--makes developing it in phases the only practical option, Hoffman said.

The hearing is now scheduled for the commission’s April 11-14 meeting in Long Beach.