Planners approve police HQ expansion

Lolita Harper

The Planning Commission overwhelmingly endorsed the long-awaited

Police Department expansion Monday night after project officials

proved plans could adequately accommodate future growth.

The Planning Commission supported the sizable project, which calls

for renovation of the existing Police Department and construction of

a new building and parking lot. Planning Commission Chairwoman

Katrina Foley cast an unenthusiastic vote to make the decision

unanimous.

Foley said the proposed designs barely meet the existing parking

and space needs at the overcrowded police facility, and less

sufficiently provide room for growth at the Civic Center as a whole.

Foley said she only supported the proposed designs because she

realized it was the best project for the resources allocated.

“I will reluctantly support the project because I realize the

[City] Council already limited the Police Department from expanding

into the future,” Foley said.

According to a staff report, the development falls 90 parking

spaces short of the city’s general requirements and increases the

building density on the Civic Center site by about 9%. The existing

Civic Center already exceeds the maximum floor area standards by 28%,

and the additional 11,000 square feet would stay consistent with that

nonconformity, the report states.

Planners also justified the parking by pointing out that most of

the employees at the new building already work for the city and park

in the existing lot. While the plan falls short of the required

number of spaces for a building of its size, it would increase by 28

the number of parking spaces. Further parking needs could be met by

re-striping the older lot, officials said.

Project manager Richard Greer assured commissioners that project

plans more than compensated for anticipated growth -- measured by

statistical projections, which calculated anticipated population

growth and the subsequent need for more police personnel until 2010.

Because of the distinct nature of police work, building space is

not necessarily needed for individual work stations and desks,

project architect Cliff Allen said. Most of the sworn personnel are

continuously in the field, and when they are on site they use a

common work station to file reports.

The proposed design provides more than enough locker room and

parking space, which is really the only on-site space a police

officer uses, Greer said. The expansion project also makes room for

additional office space, forensic storage and a new emergency

operations center, and allows narcotics and vice detectives to move

out of the Westside substation and return to police headquarters,

Greer said.

Foley said she was not solely concerned with additions to the

Police Department but to the Civic Center as a whole, which houses

City Hall, a fire station, communications and the Police Department

on a 9.4-acre lot. The entire center shares parking and a teeming

City Hall building is due for an expansion in the foreseeable future,

Foley said. The city is running out of land and it doesn’t make sense

to push forward an expansion that only plans for the next eight

years.

“I am very concerned that we are only projecting to the year 2010

and we are in 2002 and we haven’t even broken ground yet,” Foley

said, adding that by the time the project is complete the Civic

Center could have grown enough to merit another expansion. “I just

don’t want to be back in the same situation that we are in now.”

Veteran Planning Commissioner Walt Davenport agreed that workers

at City Hall were already “pushing out the walls” but reminded Foley

that plans for the entire Civic Center were not before them and

therefore were not their concern.

“There is an escape hatch here in regard to square footage and as

far as going beyond the Police Department, that is not before us,”

Davenport said.

Foley understood the scope of her influence, but said that the

expansion’s coming in piece-meal was the heart of the problem.

“I would have planned it all at the same time,” Foley said.

* LOLITA HARPER covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at lolita.harper@latimes.com.