Judge halts development near Big Bear Lake
Groups say condo project would harm bald eagle nesting area
A judge recently blocked a Big Bear-area development that conservation groups say threatened habitat for nesting bald eagles made famous by a live webcam.
In the Feb. 25 ruling, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Gilbert Ochoa set aside the county’s 2014 permit approvals, saying the underlying project approval had expired.
According to a news release from petitioners Friends of Big Bear Valley and the Center for Biological Diversity, the project included 19 threestory condominium buildings on 12 acres of undeveloped lakefront and 175 boat slips in a private marina. Court records show a large-scale housing project was first proposed in the early 1980s, and by 1991 the county approved a plan for 133 condos and a commercial “destination resort” for the site in the community of Fawnskin.
Conservation groups filed several lawsuits claiming the
environmental report from the 1980s needed to be updated, along with other concerns, with mixed results. Delayed, but not stopped, grading and demolition work began in 2014 and the current lawsuit was filed.
The groups claimed the county issued the permits without a valid approval, and that the project was destroying critical environmental resources.
County spokesperson David Wert noted that although the county is listed as the defendant, the party that bears the costs and consequences is the developer.
“The county is a neutral party with no interest in the case,” he wrote in an email.
The developer could appeal, he said, and if the ruling is upheld, Board of Supervisors approval would be needed for the project to move forward.
Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, said as of now, to move forward, the developer would have to redo decades of old environmental work.
“If they want to do that, I’m fine with that,” she said over the phone. “The problem with this one is they were continuing on with environmental work they had done in 1983, which was completely outdated, and didn’t count any of the current conditions.”
One of the big changes since then, she said, is bald eagles have begun nesting in the area, which saw its first eggs in 2012.
The ruling is a major win for the current pair of eagles, Steers said, who are tending eggs 145 feet up a Jeffrey Pine tree with views of Big Bear Lake.
The win “makes it much more likely that Jackie and Shadow will be able to enjoy nesting here in their beautiful penthouse suite into the future,” Steers wrote in a social media post.
The project threatened the raptors’ foraging and nesting area, she said, and would have been visible from the web cam over their nest.
The ruling “means even if they go back and try to do another development, the nest would have to be taken into consideration this time, because it wasn’t there before,” Steers said.
That means any future project would have to include mitigation measures to keep the development from impacting the eagles.
Although the ruling has been made, Wert said, the parties are waiting for the court’s order, or final direction.
Another project immediately east of the Marina Point site was approved by the Board of Supervisors last year.
The Friends of Big Bear Valley and other groups have filed legal action against that project as well. Dubbed Moon Camp, it’s slated for 50 homes and a marina for 55 boats.