SOUNDING OFF:

The website of the great Makar company lists 17 very high-end properties, such as the St. Regis Resort Monarch Beach, the Hilton Anaheim Hotel Convention Center and the Wyndham Orange County. All together, a great and powerful lineup of properties.

Why then cannot this master developer install at least a temporary replacement sidewalk next to its Pacific City project site along Huntington Street?

For many years, there was a serviceable asphalt pedestrian way extending down Huntington Street from Atlanta Avenue to Pacific Coast Highway. With the commencement three or four years ago of Makar’s Pacific City project, the Huntington Street sidewalk was torn up, forcing pedestrians to walk amid highway traffic. It is not uncommon to see a young mother with a stroller sharing space with autos, trucks and buses.

City staff indicates that a condition was not imposed upon Makar requiring a temporary sidewalk because it was contemplated that the development of Pacific City would proceed apace.

Well now, just how much would it cost Makar to move its construction fence back a few yards, grade a walkway and surface it with a fine compost of gravel? Much less, I think, than an award in wrongful injury or death lawsuit filed on behalf of a Huntington Street walker crushed by a truck.

But then again, maybe Makar is highly leveraged. Maybe it cannot afford to meet civic obligations.

I notice that alone among all of the other major hotel developers, Makar seems not to have donated any significant amount of money to the city’s centennial Rose Bowl Parade float. If poverty is the problem, why then are they involved with the city’s proposed senior center? I think it is time for Makar to give something back to the residents neighboring its project site, just a small payback for all of the dust, noise and shaking that have been inflicted by its on-and-off-again construction activities.

PAUL CROSS is a Huntington Beach resident.