Homes in El Camino’s future

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- To little apparent opposition, the Planning Commission

on Monday recommended that the rundown El Camino Shopping Center be

replaced by about two dozen single-family houses.

Although nobody spoke against the change at the commission meeting,

store owners, employees and customers say they are dead set against the

conversion.

“I don’t want the shopping center to move, because when I need

something right away, I go to the market over there,” said Minerva

Huicochea, who attended the meeting and who signed the petition.

Javier Antunez, owner of Antunez Fashion at the shopping center, said

many of those opposed to the conversion don’t understand English well and

had trouble following the meeting. “I thought we would get more

information on what is going to happen to us, but they didn’t talk about

us at all,” he said. “We thought it was a presentation, so we didn’t

talk.”

Abel Gonzales, manager of the meat department at the shopping center’s

Central Market, said many of the market’s Latino customers think they are

being pushed out because of their ethnicity.

“They feel it’s because people don’t want them here; that’s why they

are doing this,” he said. “Many don’t speak the language and feel they

are not supported by the city. The city should have another meeting and

try to get the opinions of the Hispanic people. They count also; they pay

taxes also.”

Commissioner Bill Perkins said Chairman Walt Davenport made it

“painfully obvious” when it was time for the public to speak and that the

decision had nothing to do with the fact that many customers are Latino.

“It’s nothing like that at all,” he said. Jeff Pratt, one of the

owners of the center, “said he has owned it almost a year and it just

isn’t making any money. This has nothing to do with people’s race. He’s

got a lease with everybody, and what he wants to do with those is his

business.”

The reason for putting in the houses, Davenport said, is that the

center has outlived its usefulness to the community.

“It can’t support the kinds of improvements and upgrading that would

make it attractive to the neighborhood, so I think the change is a needed

one.”

In a 4-0 vote, with Commissioner Katrina Foley abstaining, the

Planning Commission approved the request to rezone the property from

neighborhood commercial to medium-density residential.

The residential designation would allow the developer, El Camino

Partners LLC, to build between 19 and 29 homes on the 2.5-acre site, in

the 1000 block of El Camino Drive.

The plan, if approved by the City Council, would convert the rundown

shopping center -- bordered by single-family homes, an office building

and apartments -- into single-family houses.

El Camino Partners has not submitted a specific housing plan, and the

design will depend on new residential development standards being

finalized by the city.

The proposed revisions would require bigger lots, larger driveways,

more off-street parking, more landscaping and a more extensive review

process for new developments and major remodels.

Final designs for the El Camino project will be reviewed by the

Planning Commission and the City Council after the standards are

approved.

About 10 residents spoke at the Planning Commission meeting Monday,

all of them in favor of changing the shopping center into housing,

Perkins said.

The Mesa Del Mar Homeowners Assn. Inc. supports the plans, and the

city received a petition with about 300 signatures in favor of the

change.

Opponents said they also submitted a petition with about 200

signatures.