Affordable housing plans turned down
The Huntington Beach City Council on Monday denied a review of affordable-housing plans for a site at Beach Boulevard and Main Street.
Applicant Pate Foundation, a Costa Mesa nonprofit that partners with developers of low-income housing, will have to reconfigure its proposal for a 24-unit complex for the plans to be reconsidered.
Council members followed the Planning Commission’s recommendation to deny the site plans, voting 4-2, with Mayor Pro Tem Matthew Harper and Councilman Joe Carchio dissenting. Mayor Connie Boardman was absent.
Property owner Morrie Golcheh made a plea to the council with the hopes of getting the plans approved Monday night.
“We agree to adhere to all the requirements that [city staff] had,” said Golcheh, the property owner, who spoke on behalf of Pate Foundation. “We would design the project exactly the way they want to and the architecture will be completely up to them.”
Planning staff, the zoning administrator and the Planning Commission have all raised issues with Pate Foundation regarding the project’s design, according to a city report.
Pate Foundation submitted an application in September 2011 but has seen continuous project denials by planning and zoning personnel before being turned down by the City Council, city planner Rosemary Medel said. Since then, Pate Foundation has made appeals to keep the project alive.
The zoning administrator and planning staff said the project didn’t adhere to specifications in the Beach and Edinger Specific Plan. Issues such as varying roof lines and reduced open space were points of contention with both groups.
Planning Commission Chairman Mark Bixby said his biggest concern with the plans was with emergency fire access. After inspecting the site, Bixby said the Fire Department would have trouble navigating the alley on the west side of the building with Pate Foundation’s designs.
“There’s all sorts of cars parked illegally in the alley that would impede fire access,” he said. “I saw really big emergency response problems.”
Pate Foundation had more than enough time to change its proposal to meet requirements in the city’s specific plan, but no changes were made, Medel said.
“We believe the applicant’s lack of changing the project demonstrates that this review is completed,” she said during the meeting.
Carchio tried making a substitute motion to continue the discussion to a future date but was shot down by council members.
The city is in dire need of affordable housing and this project would be one way to help with that situation, Carchio said. Now that the application was denied, the property will never get developed, he contended.
Carchio said he would hate to lose “24 affordable housing units that would’ve accommodated some people that desperately need living space in Huntington Beach. Now we’re going to sit there with a vacant piece of property that looks” bad.