College looks to add housing

Residents living near Golden West College may be relishing their defeat of a proposal for a Costco on campus they feared would damage their neighborhoods, but it doesn’t mean they’re done with scrutiny of building in the area.

When the Coast Community College Board members voted unanimously to reject the plan for a 14-acre Costco on school land and student housing just past the edge of campus last week, they decided to go back to their own plan for development. That plan calls for six to seven acres of student land in the area be likely turned into either student or faculty housing.

A number of neighbors have been skeptical of those proposals as well.

“You want student housing?” nearby resident Robert Parker asked at last week’s meeting. “You don’t need student housing. Students here live with parents. They don’t live in housing because they can’t afford to.”

As for the future of Costco, city Economic Development Director Stanley Smalewitz has said he plans to keep trying to encourage the discount retailer to come to Huntington Beach, wherever possible. Efforts to reach Costco officials for comment were unsuccessful.

Trustees said they planned to communicate better with residents in the future when plans like that came up, and part of their vote was to boost community outreach efforts.

“It seems to me we have not a good job of community outreach in our community,” Trustee Mary Hornbuckle said. “I’d like to see down the road a proposal for community outreach in this neighborhood. We obviously have sensitized people to development in this area.”

Their vote followed Golden West College President Wes Bryan’s recommendation not to take the deal, calling a 14-acre store too large for the campus. No amount of mitigating effort could solve some of the problems of traffic, safety and space the deal would cause.

“After my review, I believe that while the proposal had potential, the footprint required is simply too large,” Bryan said. “It displaces too many of our athletic fields and parking spaces.”

Resident Robert Sternberg, who lives in a neighborhood half a mile from the college, told the City Council this week he hopes for more outreach from them as well in development projects in his area.

“I view 2008 as a year of cooperation,” he said. “The district said any future involvement of development of that property would have them touch base with the neighborhood surrounding that first, and they would work in conjunction with the people. I’m asking if you could involve community first and get their consensus.”