Permit may be canned

Some Westside Costa Mesa residents and business owners want the city to turn down a permit for a company that plans to open a recycling center in their neighborhood.

Bear Investment Properties LLC, has approached the city’s Planning Commission with plans to open a “Cash 4 Cans” business in a 7,500-square-foot industrial building at 18th Street and Placentia Avenue.

“We, along with our neighbors and Westside business owners, ... we spent years on committees trying to find ways to improve the Westside,” Judy Berry, a Westside resident, told the Planning Commission during its meeting this week. “We finally got rid of the job center at the corner of 17th and Placentia, and we don’t need a recycling center right on the next block.”

Berry added that the business could attract homeless people to the area, which, she said, is frequented by schoolchildren passing through on foot.

“If the majority of the recyclers are the homeless people with their shopping carts, we don’t need them backed up on Placentia, either,” Berry said.

City staff are recommending that the commission deny the company’s permit application. Apart from citing residents’ opposition to a recycling business coming in, city officials warn that the business could cause noise for its neighbors and hinder the city’s ability to attract “high quality” development projects to the area, according to a city staff report.

The area is zoned for general industrial use, but Costa Mesa’s general plan identifies Placentia as a secondary development corridor to the city. Allowing a recycling business to set up shop there could lead to future businesses shying away from the area, city officials said.

“I have no concerns about recyclers, recyclers are beneficial in many, many ways, with the focus on green,” John Hawley, a Costa Mesa resident, told the commission. “The problem is many Realtors say it’s location, location, location. I feel it’s improper for this particular business, not by the business itself, but by, unfortunately, many of their customers.”

The planning commission was scheduled to vote on the issue at its Tuesday meeting, but the item was moved to May 10 at the permit applicant’s request.