Resident continues fight against Target

Andrew Glazer

COSTA MESA -- A resident fighting a developer’s plans to build a shopping

center near homes he owns will try Monday to convince the City Council to

reverse its approval of the project.

“I won’t be bringing up a lot of new issues,” said Al Morelli, who said

the Target store, restaurant and garden center planned for the site will

increase the neighborhood’s traffic and noise, from slamming car doors

and chirping alarms. “But the city appears to be dancing around the old

ones.”

The council will decide if Morelli and his attorney, Jack Lee, present

enough evidence to warrant a rehearing.

Morelli first appealed the Planning Commission’s March decision to

approve the project earlier this month. But the council voted this month

to allow the Dayton Hudson Corp., Target’s parent organization, to

continue with its plans for the site.

Without Morelli’s appeals, the Target project would never had required a

hearing. City planners determined it met all of the city’s requirements

for the site.

But in the prior hearings, Morelli said he believed the city had put the

project on a “fast track.”

“They’ve been going through the formalities,” Morelli said Friday.

“They’ve wasted my time.”

Jim Theusch of the Dayton Hudson Corp. said opposition to new

developments is nothing new.

“When we open any store, we’re going to encounter obstacles and go

through the city’s processes,” he said.

The City Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 77 Fair

Drive.