City officials authorize Westside initiatives

Alicia Robinson

Costa Mesa city officials have given the green light to a slate of

new initiatives they expect will change the look of the Westside. But

some of the Westsiders who are supposed to benefit from the

revitalization efforts feel snubbed by what they see as the City

Council’s rushed approval of a shortsighted plan.

It took three decades for the city to get a diverse group of

business owners and residents with sometimes clashing interests to

work together. The broad-based committee they formed gave a report

to the council in October that recommended adding new homes,

screening trash bins from view, creating a business improvement

district and more.

But on Tuesday the council voted unanimously for a plan that

expands some new zoning areas beyond the committee’s recommendation.

The adopted plan suggests adding zoning for artists’ lofts or

“live/work” spaces, mainly south of 18th Street; a smaller corridor

along West 19th Street allowing mixed use buildings up to four

stories; and areas where higher density -- up to 20 units per acre --

would be allowed to encourage owner-occupied condominiums or

clustered homes.

Councilman Eric Bever, who proposed the plan that was adopted,

said he included the main elements from the committee’s

recommendations. “If we can get some new housing in there, some

people with more disposable income, then we’ll be able to attract

some things that everybody takes for granted, like Starbucks, Ralph’s

grocery,” Bever said.

But some committee members think Bever’s plan expands residential

zoning too widely in a currently industrial area, which will lead to

fights between businesses and people who move in near them.

Even when they know they’re moving into an industrial area,

“people have short memories, and the bottom line is when the night

shift starts up at the plant across the street, the police are going

to get phone calls, and the city councilmen are going to get phone

calls saying, ‘I can’t sleep,’” said committee member Mike Harrison,

who also is a partner in Trico Realty on the Westside.

While council members weren’t obligated to accept the committee’s

recommendations, it’s disappointing that they dismissed such a

hard-won consensus, Harrison said.

“Now what we have, frankly, is a situation when the industrial and

business property owners, at least most of us, are saying, ‘Boy,

we’ve got to defend our turf,’” he said. “We’re essentially being

told, ‘You’re not welcome here anymore.’”

Committee chairman Ralph Ronquillo said he’s glad to see the plan

move forward, but he doesn’t want people to confuse what the council

approved with what the committee recommended.

“My other concern is that, to my knowledge, Mr. Bever’s revisions

were not distributed to the community at large in advance of the

meeting,” Ronquillo said.

That also bothered Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who, although

voting for the plan, didn’t think Bever gave any time for discussion

of his plan by the council or the public. At the meeting, some

council members protested that the information had been available

before the meeting and anyone could have commented on it.

“I did not feel it was appropriate to just sort of dismiss all of

the work of the committee and come up with my own plan,” Foley said.

“Unilateral decision making is just not right.”

Some observers thought Tuesday’s council meeting was a runaway

train, and Foley wasn’t the only one who felt railroaded.

The council also decided -- in a split vote with Foley and

Councilwoman Linda Dixon dissenting -- to close the Job Center, which

since 1988 has offered a place for day laborers to connect with

employers so they don’t solicit work on city streets.

Councilman Gary Monahan linked closing the Job Center to the

Westside improvements, but Dixon thinks the center could have at

least been phased out over a period of years, because the Westside

isn’t going to change overnight.

“For me, the decision had been made even before the public hearing

had opened up, the way that Gary and [Mayor] Allan [Mansoor] and Eric

seemed to be talking,” Dixon said.

Others in the city were equally unsettled by the council’s

decisions on the Westside and the Job Center.

“I haven’t talked to anybody that is pleased with what the council

did on Tuesday night,” Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce President Ed

Fawcett said. “It doesn’t paint a pretty picture of what our

council’s going to be doing.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at alicia.robinson

@latimes.com.