City leaders put hold on dividing industrial sites

COSTA MESA — City Council members voted Tuesday to temporarily block the subdivision of industrial developments citywide while they develop new standards and determine how the subdivisions might affect redevelopment plans for the Westside.

The unanimously approved moratorium will last 45 days, but it could be extended to two years.

City officials have said no industrial-park subdivisions are in the works, so no specific request is being blocked by the moratorium.

Councilman Eric Bever said the key reason for the moratorium isn’t the Westside but the lack of standards and city discretion in industrial building subdivisions.

When owners want to convert residential units to condos for sale they must be reviewed by staff and planning commission members, but there’s no such process when an industrial building owner wants to split up units and sell them individually.

“We don’t want to see things being sold that are not brought up to the Uniform Building Code,” he said. “I think there is more to this than just a desire to force a direction in a certain area of town.”

But it was a Westside industrial subdivision, approved by the planning commission in February, that brought the issue to the fore.

“My fear is that this may deter the plans for the Westside, and I’m not certain if these [subdivisions] are good for the city of Costa Mesa or bad for the city,” said Councilwoman Linda Dixon, who asked for the moratorium.

In April 2006 the council approved new zoning rules allowing residential and mixed-use development on the city’s largely industrial Westside, but the housing market has since slowed and few projects have come forward.

The council decision may not go over well with everyone. Kevin Kirby, who works for real estate broker CB Richard Ellis, told the council the moratorium could be a disincentive to redevelop some properties.

He represents several clients who own industrial properties, he said, and “this would effectively eliminate their ability to sell their property.”

Mike Harrison, a partner at Trico Realty, said before Tuesday’s meeting that while the moratorium could hurt the property values of his company’s holdings, Trico doesn’t intend to subdivide its industrial facilities.

But Harrison criticized council members on philosophical grounds, noting that they pitched the new Westside zoning as a way to permit redevelopment but let the free market dictate its extent.

“Now if they put on a moratorium, what they’re saying is, ‘We don’t want you guys to continue as an industrial use. We want to convert it to residential,’ ” Harrison said. “It clearly isn’t respectful of market conditions, and that was really the banner under which they argued” for the residential zoning.

The council and planning commission will hold a study session on the issue in the next couple of months, and Bever has asked staffers to create a permit process for industrial subdividing. A progress report will come to the council in April.