Housing may be in OCC’s future

Deirdre Newman

Officials with the Coast Community College District want to lease

property it owns for development as apartments at a higher density

than the city allows.

The district board voted to solicit proposals in September for the

apartment project on the corner of Adams Avenue and Pinecreek Drive

near Orange Coast College. The proposal calls for at least 304 units.

The board received 13 proposals and was set to select a bidder on

Wednesday. But board members had so many questions that they decided

to postpone the issue until Nov. 14, spokeswoman Erin Cohn said.

Cohn said the district chose the project that would be the best

investment.

The rent it receives would benefit students by providing funds to

add more classes to schedules that have been decimated by state

budget cuts, Cohn added.

But the district’s desire to exceed allowable density has already

riled at least one resident.

Mike Berry charges the district is being hypocritical after

promising to be a good neighbor when it violated its permit to

operate a weekend swap meet. He said higher density projects usually

mean problems with parking, traffic and overcrowding.

“It’s not that [the project] is such a terrible thing, but it

comes from someone who has already had problems in being a good

neighbor,” Berry said. “And a lot of people are thinking maybe [the

district] doesn’t respect their residency in Costa Mesa as much as it

should. They’re not being the good neighbor that they claim they

are.”

The proposal calls for the 304 units to be developed on a swath of

about 13 acres. The district is seeking rent of $800,000 to $900,000

per year.

The district would like to see about 30% of the apartments

reserved for faculty, staff and students, Cohn said.

“It’s a problem that a lot of schools encounter in areas with very

high property values [in trying] to attract the best staff and

students,” Cohn said.

The maximum density in the city’s general plan for residential

areas is 20 units per acre. The number of units the district is

requesting would equate to 25 units per acre or less.

The property is zoned institutional and recreational. The request

for proposals lets bidders know they will need to obtain a change to

the city’s general plan and a zoning change to build the project.

While it is ultimately up to the City Council to grant the changes

and decide how much density is appropriate for this area, asking

developers to flout the city’s rules could prove controversial, said

Perry Valantine, the city’s assistant development services director.

“Since the density exceeds what might be available under the

general plan, it creates some potential conflict or maybe an

unreasonable expectation,” Valantine said.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.