Pacific City goes to council

Jenny Marder

The long-awaited Planning Commission approval of the proposed Pacific

City project was anticlimactic when it came since the project has

been appealed and must go before the City Council.

The Planning Commission approved the plan 6 to 1 at a special

meeting last week. That was by no means a green light since the

Robert Mayer Corp., which owns the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach

Resort & Spa and the Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort have appealed the

project to the City Council.

Robert Mayer Corp. President Steve Bone has said the project lacks

the necessary on-site parking, and fails to adequately address

traffic impacts or bacteria from storm water runoff.

The project must now go before the City Council.

The Planning Commission’s approval was also not without

conditions. Commissioners placed a condition on the project requiring

a minimum of 500 self-parking spaces to be open to the public at all

times.

They set requirements for cleanup of the contaminated land, which

included placing a tarp over trucks leaving the site, to prevent the

escape of contaminated soil. They also required that signs be posted

every 250 feet around the perimeter of the property during

construction. Each sign will contain contact information for the site

supervisor, city officials and contacts at the Air Quality Management

District.

They also required the applicant to construct sidewalks on

Huntington Street and Atlanta Avenue to make the surrounding area

safer for pedestrians.

“On a project this big, everything needs to be talked about and I

think all in all, the community’s concerns were heard,” said Michael

Gagnet, vice president of developer Makar Properties. “I think that

[the Planning Commission] was firm and they were fair. We’re looking

forward to getting going.”

Plans for Pacific City, which would stretch along the coast and be

bordered by Atlanta Avenue, Huntington and First streets, call for

516 homes, a luxury hotel, shops, restaurants and offices.

Commissioner Robert Dingwall, who cast the sole vote against the

project, fears that the cleanup of the site, formerly a Chevron Corp.

oil field, will be done improperly. He’s also worried that the

project lacks sufficient parking and will create traffic jams in

surrounding streets.

“Because of these issues that I feel were not handled or handled

improperly, I would be abandoning my fiduciary responsibility to the

citizens of the community and abandoning my pledge to the citizens of

the community to put their health and welfare above all things,”

Dingwall said.

Commissioner Tom Livengood feels that the Planning Commission

addressed all these concerns.

“I think that the project is a good project and I think that the

conditions we imposed on it make it a good project,” Livengood said.

The City Council will vote on the project’s environmental report

on June 7.

“We’re one stop closer to putting to action the vision of the

city,” Gagnet said.