El Camino debate heads to council

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- An emotionally charged neighborhood debate about a plan

to replace an aging Mesa Del Mar retail center with homes could ignite

tonight when the City Council decides the center’s future.

The plan, if approved, would convert the rundown, 2.5-acre El Camino

Shopping Center -- bordered by single-family homes, an office building

and apartments -- into single-family homes.

The council is scheduled to discuss only a request to rezone the

property from “neighborhood commercial” to “medium-density residential,”

which would allow the owners to build between 19 and 29 homes on the

site.

The developer, El Camino Partners LLC, has not submitted a specific

plan, and the design will depend on new housing development standards the

city is working on.

The City Council last month voted to extend a moratorium on new

two-story, single-family developments and second-story additions in all

residential areas in the city while it works on those new codes.

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

Planning Commission and the City Council after the standards are

approved.

The Planning Commission approved the plan before an audience that

spoke only in favor of the plan Feb. 26.

But neighboring residents, customers and shop owners have expressed

strong opinions for and against the proposed change.

“We have a problem here in that we have owners who have a vested

interest in their homes and apartment renters who don’t have a vested

interest,” said Michael Dilsisian, a Mesa Del Mar homeowner Friday. “It

is easy for apartment renters to get up and leave. We both have strong

opinions, but they have nothing to lose. We want to see some change. It’s

time.”

Javier Antunez, spokesman for a number of El Camino Shopping Center

shopowners and customers, said he plans to speak to the council for the

first time Monday.

Antunez is opposed to the plan, which he said could ruin his business,

Antunez Fashion, but he did not speak against it at a Planning Commission

meeting last month.

“We just didn’t understand what was going on,” he said. “Last time, we

didn’t talk about it because we didn’t think we were supposed to and then

last week we thought we were going to talk, but [the Planning Commission]

didn’t talk about the El Camino Shopping Center.”

Antunez said he and others who oppose the proposed development also

intended to speak at the last commission meeting March 12, only to

realize later in the meeting that the issue was not on the agenda.

“This week, we are going to be ready,” he said Friday.

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

Central Market, has said that many of the market’s Latino customers think

they are being pushed out because of their ethnicity.

But Dilsisian said it just isn’t true.

“We don’t really care who lives here as far as ethnicity goes,” he

said. “We just want the shopping center gone. It’s a matter of

beautifying the neighborhood. Beautiful new homes would be much better

than what is there now, which is horrible, rundown and would take far too

much capital for any owner to invest in it.

“Because of its location, it just can’t succeed. It’s become a hangout

for all kinds of crime elements. We want to be fair, but we just want

this to be a place where we can feel safe.”