City Council halts condo conversions

COSTA MESA — The city has banned splitting up and selling off residential and industrial units, after the City Council on Tuesday put a temporary moratorium on condo conversions.

The city already required owners of multi-family homes to meet certain standards for parking, landscaping and other amenities before they could split the units and sell them separately. But council members want to tighten up those standards and create some for industrial properties, which could be split up and sold with minimal review or input from city officials.

Councilman Eric Bever worried that first-time home buyers may face problems if old plumbing or electrical wiring fails them.

“We have a lot of these coming through the mill now, and a lot of them, I believe, are buildings that are 40, 50 years old,” Councilman Eric Bever said. “My concern is that in the name of affordability, in the name of home-ownership, we’re kind of blindly moving forward, and we’re presenting a potential health and safety problem for the future homeowner.”

Council members decided in March to put a 45-day moratorium on industrial park subdivisions, and they voted Tuesday to do the same for condo conversions, but in the 4-0 vote (Councilwoman Katrina Foley was absent) they grandfathered in 12 projects whose owners have already submitted applications.

Recently the planning commission and council have been torn between the desire to increase homeownership, which is significantly below the national average, and concerns about adequate parking and buildings with aging infrastructure.

City officials have considered 20 condo conversion projects and approved 19 of them since January 2006, according to planning staff members.

A number of developers said that although they aren’t opposed to higher standards, they asked that the council reach that goal without the moratorium.

Harvey Berger, who told the council he’s been a developer in Costa Mesa since 1964, cautioned that by blocking condo conversions, the city would prevent older buildings from being fixed up and would hurt opportunities for home-ownership. “It would be very unfair for anyone in my situation, I think, to be stopped after the building department and planning department have encouraged them to go on,” he said. “I’ve already spent over $60,000 on this project. A moratorium would absolutely ruin this project for me.”

Last month, council members said a moratorium on industrial subdivisions was important partly so the city can create standards, but also because some wondered how the subdivisions might affect the Westside, where they’re hoping to see new mixed-use projects.

Each moratorium could be extended to two years.