Latino concerns to be addressed

Andrew Glazer

COSTA MESA -- There should be no problem addressing Latino concerns as

the city makes plans to revitalize the West Side, the project’s leader

said Tuesday.

“The satisfaction of this whole project will come from seeing the end

results,” said Elwood C. Tescher, director of urban planning and design

at EIP Associates, the consultants hired by the city. “The only way for

that to happen is to get the stakeholders involved in the process.”

Almost 45% of the neighborhood’s residents are Latino, according to a

report UC Irvine graduate students prepared for the advisory group.

A coalition of neighborhood activists, business owners and residents on

Monday presented the City Council with a report stressing the community’s

need for a grocery store, affordable housing and increased community

policing.

The group, the Latino Community Advisors, formed in September after

Latino residents living on the West Side complained that planners had

forgotten to ask for their input.

Their vision, as outlined Monday, doesn’t include anything too new or

radical, said Tescher, who was hired by the city in 1997 to find a

solution to the neighborhood’s landscaping, street layout and traffic

problems.

“Initially we heard people talking about bulldozers for the

neighborhood,” Tescher said. “But now we’re all working within the

margins of what’s already there. We’re tinkering with the basic fabric.”

But Tescher said he did find some contradictions in the group’s

recommendations.

The advisory group favors a new grocery store in the neighborhood,

Tescher noted, while it also was opposed to closing any existing

businesses or housing developments.

“There’s no sites where the grocery store would fit,” he said. “If you’re

going to have it, you have to take away something from the property.

There are inherently hard issues that have to be addressed in making this

big vision work.”

Mayor Gary Monahan said the Latino Community Advisors’ suggestions, along

with recommendations from other civic groups, will help the planning

process.

“They’re all going into the same huge melting pot, the pot that will

eventually spit out the new redevelopment plan,” Monahan said.

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