Homeowners to fight new Home Depot

Dave Brooks

A Home Depot slated to replace an abandoned Kmart building on

Magnolia Street could become the next big development battle in

Huntington Beach, similar to unsuccessful past campaigns to halt

construction of Lowes and Wal-Mart.

The home improvement giant took over the Kmart location in August

in a complicated 12-store grab to shore up cash for Kmart during its

bankruptcy woes. Home Depot plans to tear down the old building and

build a 137,000-square-foot retail store and garden center, but

neighbors are preparing to fight the project.

“Primarily, it’s just too large of a business for this

neighborhood,” said Steve Worley who lives on Lindsay Lane, a

neighborhood of mostly single-story homes with backyards separated

from the Home Depot site by a six-foot block wall. “Having a Kmart

there won’t be a terrible situation, but with Home Depot, we’re

talking huge amounts of traffic.”

Worley has begun circulating a petition with his neighbors to stop

Home Depot and launched a website. His literature makes the usual

complaints against the controversial retailer, considered to be the

second biggest of its kind behind Wal-Mart.

Home Depot representatives did not return calls.

Home Depot will generate traffic congestion problems, he said, and

noise from 24-hour deliveries. The concrete wall separating his

backyard from Home Depot is not enough to keep out sounds during the

store’s construction and operation, and there’s already two Home

Depot’s nearby: one on Warner Avenue in Huntington Beach and another

on Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa, Worley said.

Worley is also worried about day laborers congregating at the site

and roaming his neighborhood, he said.

“We’re not just trying to raise hell for raising hell’s sake,”

said homeowner Laurence McCarty, who moved into his home in 1968 when

the adjacent lot was just an onion field. “We have legitimate

concerns about having Home Depot as our new neighbor.”

Right now the project is in the early stages of the planning

process. Home Depot’s initial proposal calls for a

102,513-square-foot building with an adjacent 34,643-square-foot

garden center. The store would employ about 200 people with 30%

transferred from local facilities to train new staff members. The

plan is to be open from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., the report said, and

occasionally stay open 24 hours. Deliveries, about 10 to 20 each day,

would also be allowed 24 hours a day if management gets its way.

Before the project can move forward, Home Depot needs to address

85 concerns raised by the city in a recent memo, assistant city

planner Ron Santos said.

“We determined that the information they submitted wasn’t

sufficient,” he said. “The ball’s really in their court right now.”

No timeline has been submitted for the project and the city is

essentially waiting to hear back from Home Depot, Santos said. After

the project makes its way through the planners, it will be given a

public hearing by a zoning administrator, Santos said. If the project

is approved, it can be appealed to the Planning Commission, and

ultimately the City Council.

Whatever the result, neighbor Dave Brown said he’s worried that

the property value of his Lindsay Lane home will drop if Home Depot

comes in. He said he wants to oppose the project, but is discouraged

by failed attempts to block Wal-Mart and Lowes.

“We saved for 25 years to buy this home, and now we’re afraid that

its value will drop by about $50,000,” he said. “And I don’t even

plan to shop at the new Home Depot. The bottom line is that there is

no upside to having this right around the corner.”

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

966-4609 or by e-mail at dave.brooks@latimes.com.