Huntington Beach Gives Final OK to McDonnell Project

Fending off a tiff with a neighboring city over highway congestion, the hottest political issue in Orange County, the Huntington Beach City Council agreed Tuesday night to work with Westminster officials to reduce any traffic problems that would be created by the McDonnell Douglas Space Center’s high-rise development.

The Huntington Beach council also gave the McDonnell Douglas project its final approval and overruled appeals by Westminster of the Huntington Beach Planning Commission’s Jan. 5 approval of the project.

In approving the development, which was also appealed by residents of a 550-unit condominium complex called Westminster Village, the council voted 5 to 0, with Councilman Tom Mays abstaining because he works for the company. Councilman Wes Bannister was absent.

The compromise included several requirements in addition to those imposed by the Planning Commission. Most notably, the Huntington Beach City Council agreed to form a traffic study committee made up of representatives from both cities and one resident of Westminster Village.

The committee will have to decide within six months what exactly McDonnell Douglas will have to pay, up to $100,000, toward mitigation of traffic problems.

The MDC Huntington Beach Office Park, as the project is called, will include twin towers to be built in phases and provide offices for an additional 2,000 new employees working on the company’s $1.9-billion space station contract. One tower would be 12 stories, and the other eight. Two restaurants and small retail shops would also be built.

The project, which will be built on an 18-acre section of the company’s 250-acre property at the corner of Bolsa Avenue and Bolsa Chica Street, represents the largest office complex in the city.

Virtually all of the opposition Tuesday night came from Westminster residents who told the council that potential air quality, noise and traffic congestion from the development would be unacceptable.

Stressing that they support the project and want to be good neighbors, Westminster officials have nevertheless contended since last fall that McDonnell Douglas Realty Co., an Irvine-based branch of the huge aerospace corporation, should pay about $155,000 of at least $500,000 in traffic improvements at five key Westminster intersections they expect will be needed.

The city maintains that those intersections are already overwhelmed at peak traffic hours by McDonnell Douglas employees commuting to and from work.

“Since traffic circulation problems have no respect for city boundaries,” Westminster Mayor Pro Tem Charles V. Smith stated in a Jan. 14 letter to the Huntington Beach City Council, “we believe it is imperative for Huntington Beach and Westminster to work closely on this project.”

Intersections that will be most affected by the development, and the costs to modify the roads or signals, were identified by Westminster City Engineer Neal Thompson in a letter last Dec. 31 to Huntington Beach planners--a letter that was presented to the city Planning Commission before its Jan. 5 decision.

At that meeting, however, Huntington Beach planners and the traffic engineer hired to do that portion of the environmental impact statement contended that those five intersections--most of them near or feeding freeway on-ramps--were already operating poorly and that the proposed office development would contribute no more than a 7% increase in traffic.

The intersections are: Garden Grove Boulevard/22-405 Freeway Ramp, Garden Grove Boulevard-Bolsa Chica Road, Westminster Avenue-Springdale Avenue, Westminster Avenue-Bolsa Chica Road, Rancho Road-Bolsa Chica Road.

The Planning Commission had OKd McDonnell Douglas’ plan, but one of several requirements it made was that the firm pay up to $35,000 to help mitigate Westminster’s traffic woes.

Occupancy levels of McDonnell Douglas’ first tower would be reviewed and a determination made as to “whether additional traffic mitigation measures might be levied, such as a traffic impact fee levied against the applicant (McDonnell) prior to the development and occupancy of their second tower,” Erskine said.