HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Min 1998-11-17
11-17-98
Seal Beach, California
November 17, 1998
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The City Council of the City of Seal Beach met in regular
adjourned session at 7:02 p.m. with Mayor Brown calling the
meeting to order with the Salute to the Flag.
ROLL CALL
Present:
Mayor Brown
Councilmembers Boyd, Campbell, Doane, Yost
Absent: None
Also present: Mr. Till, City Manager
Mr. Barrow, City Attorney
Mr. Whittenberg, Director of Development
Services
Mr. Badum, Director of Public Works/
City Engineer
Ms. Beard, Director of Recreation and Parks
Mrs. Yeo, City Clerk
APPROVAL OF AGENDA
Boyd moved, second by Yost, to approve the order of the
agenda as presented.
AYES:
NOES:
Boyd, Brown, Campbell, Doane, Yost
None Motion carried
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ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Mayor Brown declared Oral Communications open however
requested that comments relating to the Bixby project not be
made under Oral Communications, rather, during the public
hearing. Mr. Irwin Anisman, Rossmoor, said as a member
thereof he wished to pass along information relating to the
Grand Jury. He noted this is Orange County Grand Jury
awareness month and that there was a Los Angeles Times
article this date regarding Grand Juries. Mr. Anisman said
he wished to encourage people to make application for Grand
Jury service, the service is for a period of one year, July
1st through June 30th, compensation is $25 per day plus
mileage, issues involve both criminal, charges brought by the
District Attorney for indictment, about fifteen to twenty
percent of the considerations, and civil matters that are
basically watchdog issues. Mr. Anisman said the work is hard
yet personally rewarding and satisfying, and provided
applications for any interested person. There being no
further comments, Mayor Brown declared Oral Communications
closed.
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CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING - BIXBY OLD RANCH TOWNE CENTER
DEVELOPMENT PLAN - FINAL EIR - GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT 98-1 -
LAND USE/OPEN SPACE/CONSERVATION/RECREATION/BICYCLE ROUTE/
HOUSING/CIRCULATION/NOISE ELEMENTS - ZONE CHANGE 98-1 -
TENTATIVE PARCEL MAP NO. 97-165 - TENTATIVE TRACT MAP NO.
15767 - DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT
Mayor Brown declared the continued public hearing open. The
City Clerk reported receipt of additional communications/
petitions bearing the signatures of twenty persons in
opposition to the proposed project for a total of one
thousand three hundred fifty signatures, also, communications
from the City of Los Alamitos dated November 11th and the
Departments of the Army and the Air Force, Office of the
Adjutant General, dated November 13th.
11-17-98
Mayor Brown invited those present wishing to speak to this
item to do so, requested that comments be kept within the
five minute limit and not be repetitive. Ms. Helene Helprin,
Los Alamitos/Rossmoor, said she has great opposition to the
building of the Old Ranch Towne Center for a number of
reasons, many have been heard before, traffic, aesthetics,
crowding, cut through traffic, etc. She offered that as she
travels the 605 Freeway there is a new plaza at Carson Street
with a Ross, Barnes and Noble, Aaron Brothers, these within a
mile and a half of duplicate stores presently near her home.
She asked how many neighborhoods have to be destroyed,
communities decimated, trees cut down, to duplicate an
endless redundancy of what already exists, considering the
many years of sophistication, advancement, education,
society, culture, etc., asked if all that the public is is
endless consumers to the point that they do not need any more
of what is put before them to consume, is that thought to be
the only value in people's lives. She said while collecting
signatures for the petition what dismayed her was the number
of people that passed by asking that they not be requested to
sign, that the project was already a done, their voice nor
signature meant nothing, to that she asked if the apathy of
the people to government at all levels is democracy when they
do not feel their voices will even be heard. Ms. Helprin
stated that the Council "is the representative of the people,
asking that the Council think with their hearts and heads
about how many people are strongly against this project. She
mentioned having heard comments with regard to the rights of
the developer, 'on a scale with the rights of the community,
how can that bring any balance to the two sides, this is a
developer against a whole community of people, a way of life,
the sanctity of ones home, the beauty of the environment and
of coming home to a neighborhood where one feels safe and
secure and can come and go as desired, all that one needs,
what is not needed is another development. Ms. Helprin urged
that the Council take the people seriously, "put themselves in
the position of the people, think about what it would be like
to have something take place that would irrevocably erode the
quality of this community. The diagrams can be" shown, the
percentages can be predicted, yet when the trees start to
come down and the area starts to be leveled, the people will
be appalled at what the percentages mean in reality, in
reality this will take a large portion out of a very good
neighborhood, and what will there be, another shopping center
that is not needed. Mr. Stewart Milligan, Seal Beach
resident, stated his support for the proposed project, said
it is a well conceived project, considerable time has been
spent listening to the concerns of the community, the plan
has incorporated those concerns as well as any plan could, it
appears that the developer will bring in upscale, qualified,
reputable tenants, and will follow through on all aspects of
the development. He noted talk about preservation of the
environment and safety of the community, suggesting that
thought should be given to the residents of Seal Beach as
well, this project will generate somewhere between $1 to $1.5
million, when stabilized, in revenue to the City for basic
services that are needed, whether that be police, streets,
sidewalks or whatever, the City has no alternative sources of
revenue, the question is should the City borrow money, raise
taxes, utility taxes, the Council needs to listen to the
residents however think in terms of the needs of the
residents, long term this is a project that the City needs.
Mr. Milligan offered that if this plan is not approved, then
the default plan, as explained by the environmental
consultant, which consists of three commercially zoned
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parcels could be developed by whomever comes forward and
purchases them then develop a retail use that can be viable
on-site, yet they will not be paying for traffic mitigation
measures, and again as the consultant said, the alternative
to this project is an increase in traffic as a result of
developments in surrounding communities as well as the
commercial parcels in the default plan that will exceed the
level generated by the Old Towne Center, in that case the
City would not be realizing and maximizing the retail tax
revenue that is needed and for which there are no other
sources, then, the City will need to pay for traffic
mitigation measures whereby, if this plan is approved, Bixby
will pay. Mr. Milligan expressed his opinion that from a
sound fiscal management standpoint the Council would be well
advised to approve the proposed project, it is a good,
upscale project, and surely the residents will shop there.
Mr. ,Jack Philips, said he was speaking for the community of
the Los Alamitos Highlands, the direct neighbor from a
proposed large commercial store, acknowledged that the
comments of the prior speaker made sense, and the City does
have an obvious fiscal advantage by passing such a project
rather than listening to someone like him who would otherwise
have no voice in this matter even though the effect is
considerable. He noted again that this project could provide
monies that would be beneficial to Seal Beach, yet the issue
to him is if this is what the City wants to do to it's
neighbors, none of the people who reside north of the freeway
are in favor of this development, the question is why, in the
1990's and into the next century the area is growing, more
people, more traffic, how will that be managed and whose land
will it impact. Physically it should happen to them, a big
Vons should be built, the developer said they were trying to
have them relocate from Los Alamitos to this new development,
that would take the tax base of Los Alamitos away and put it
in Seal Beach. He said reasonably, since the development
does not really affect Seal Beach except for the northerly
portion it doesn't matter if there is more traffic, the
developer said there will be mitigation except for Katella in
Los Alamitos, they need to do something because of the extra
traffic, yet it is said there is not going to be any extra
traffic, again, in reality there will be more traffic, more
pollution, trucks will be outside his door in the early hours
of the morning delivering to the home center, he is going to,
be impacted, again the question is do you do that to your
neighbors in the face of overwhelming dismay as to what this
project will do to them. Mr. Edward Allen, thirty year
resident of Los Alamitos, stated he is against the proposed
development. He offered that there are many people that do
not even know this is going to take place and when told they
have reacted with shock. He said there is a beautiful
street, there is no need for more stucco and cement, people
can drive to get the same goods, this may bring in more
revenue but it should be considered that some money costs too
much, and in quote, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Mr. Don
Davis, Los Alamitos resident since 1984, said he shops in the
Rossmoor Center, frequents the area most every day, yet he
does not travel Katella any more, his car is not fast enough,
he nearly gets rear ended, people are traveling that street
about fifty-five even though it is posted forty, his route to
Rossmoor Center is via side streets, traveling the speed
limit and using turn signals, to that people object that he
travels too slow. Mr. Davis said if this project is approved
he is not certain he will be able to travel the six blocks to
the Center any more.
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Ms. Ruth Anisman, Rossmoor, said she wished to take this
opportunity to join the chorus of opposition to the Bixby
retail center. She noted that a Bixby consultant said that
this development would be drawing from other neighborhoods
from as far as five miles, that while another consultant said
that the project would draw from the local residents, which
she would tend to agree, stated that there are enough
existing centers to accommodate other neighborhoods, then why
would people come here, regardless who is right she believed
geographically Rossmoor is the most strategically located to
either support or not support this proposed Towne Center.
Ms. Anisman said in speaking with her neighbors no one has
expressed support for this project, it is one hundred percent
of her immediate area, they all have an opinion yet not all
will voice that opinion in public. She said according to a
news article of November lIth there were one thousand three
hundred thirty signatures on communications against this
project, this evening that total is one thousand three
hundred fifty against, only seven in support, her numbers
show 99.6 percent are opposed, to which she asked with that
kind of support how does one expect this Center to survive,
it could be a continuous struggle that could end up as
another lifeless center in need of being upgraded. There are
seven gas stations between St. Cloud and Katella and Bixby is
planning to build another, does that make sense, Seal
Beach/Los Alamitos Boulevard will become gas station alley.
With regard to a large market she asked if it had been heard
that Plow Boys is still negotiating to move to Los Alamitos,
the City of Los Alamitos advised as of yesterday that
negotiations are still in progress with both parties still
interested, to which she offered that shopping at Plow Boys
is a happening and when it comes she will be headed in that
direction and assuredly others will too. She noted also that
the outdoor market in Los Alamitos has taken business away
from Vons and Lucky, its popularity is increasing, another
center is planned for the old Post Office site with shops, a
book store, restaurants, home furnishings, and specialty
foods, Los Alamitos has their own Ganahl Lumber who caters to
contractors while still depending on local resident customers
for their business and they are expanding, Los Alamitos is
also located close to another big box center that is about to
open just off the 605 Freeway, it will offer variety, ample
parking, and more traffic congestion. She said one should
not count on Leisure World, Lucky's, Vons, and Rite-Aid may
be smaller than the newer businesses, and if she were a
Leisure World resident she would find them to be friendlier
and safer. Ms. Anisman recalled that an Old Town resident
stated she would not. go to north Seal Beach because there is
enough congestion, she makes multiple trips, it would be too
inconvenient, therefore without Rossmoor, College Park East,
Old Town, Los Alamitos, and Leisure World, 99.6 percent
against the Bixby project, the question is then how one would
think the merchants are going to survive, the support of all
of those comm~nities would be needed, the plan as proposed is
attempting to take away from one hand to pay another. She
said it makes sense to her that the City needs to work with
the Rossmoor Shopping Center for upgrading instead of going
forward with a plan that no one wants, there should be a plan
that 99.6 percent supports and never mind a formula for a big
box center for every three to four mile radius. Mr. Mike
Sanders, Rossmoor, said he is not opposed to allowing
developers to build on their land, yet is very much opposed
to this project, that primarily due to the type of uses that
are proposed and the scale of uses. Traffic and aesthetics
as well, this Center is designed to attract patronage from
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outside the community, a large home improvement center, large
church, uses that do not necessarily satisfy the needs of the
community, thus there will be people coming from outside the
area while those who live in the community will still travel
to wherever they choose to shop because in reality there are
no good shopping opportunities in Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, or
Seal Beach, even though it is an area of about thirty
thousand people with high end incomes, that is the concern
with traffic. With regard to Rossmoor Center, to the extent
that there will be uses at the Towne Center that will compete
with Rossmoor that will hasten the decline of that Center,
and given consideration of the economic impact of the new
Center the tax loss from Rossmoor should also be factored in
given the competing uses. Mr. Sanders acknowledged the
difficulty of this decision, however said one must consider
the impact, his feeling is that Seal Beach likewise has a
responsibility to the community at large, also, the economic
benefits may well be overstated, there is considerable
competition for the proposed Center, plus the center under
construction up the freeway, and as said, the primary trade
area for this Center are the people that live in College Park
East, Rossmoor, and Los Alamitos, these people will not
support this Center. He encouraged that the Council consider
the mixed use plan as the best alternative use, mitigating
some of the adverse impacts, and still provide a commercial
component that would service the needs of the community, that
would allow the developer to make money, the City to gain tax
revenue, and services to the community. Mayor Brown noted
reference once more to the mixed use plan, and explained
again that as previously advised, a vote can be made for the
plan under consideration or no plan, the mixed use plan is
not under consideration, if this plan is not approved, and
Bixby chose to do so, they could make reapplication for the
mixed use plan, however on several occasions Bixby has stated
they made that application, there was not support for it,
therefore the odds of such reapplication is minimum, and
encouraged that comments be limited to the commercial plan.
Mr. Glen Cook, a resident of Rossmoor since 1970, Los
Alamitos since 1960, now retired after commuting to Los
Angeles for sixteen years, said upon returning to Rossmoor
each day with its tree lined streets and well maintained
homes and yards his anxiety level decreased perceptively. He
stated his pride in the Rossmoor community with its
attractive appearance, low crime rate, minimal cross traffic,
and an outstanding school district, and those in Rossmoor
want to maintain that way of life. Mr. Cook said he has
attended many Seal Beach meetings on the Bixby Old Ranch
Towne Center proposal, it seems to be obvious that the public
comments reflect an overwhelming rejection of this proposal,
that this Country has a great concept of representative
democracy, and it is obvious to him that if the Council truly
represents the public then it will vote to reject this plan,
and it is unfortunate that the twelve thousand residents of
Rossmoor have no vote concerning this plan, in addition to
listening to its constituents, suggested that the Council
should also listen to them and represent the total of the
community, have courage and accept the recommendation of the
Planning Commission. Mr. John Pethway, Rossmoor, extended a
compliment to the first speaker, citing her comments as an
excellent presentation with which he agrees and more, however
said he hoped the comments would not be taken negatively due
to her reference to residing in Los Alamitos and Rossmoor as
they are synonymous. Mr. Jim Sarte, a nearly forty year
Rossmoor resident, a wonderful community with good
neighboring cities. He stated that the consultant, time
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after time, has said that between Lampson and St. Cloud there
will be an additional traffic lane north and south, the
developer has said that there will be a twelve foot
bike/walkway, since there is no room on the west side, all of
this must come from the easterly curb line along Seal Beach
Boulevard, to his thinking that would be about thirty-six
feet and would eliminate all of the trees between Lampson and
St. Cloud. Mr. Sarte noted that the financial consultant
referred to the Rossmoor Center as a community center, the
new center is one that will bring traffic in, by definition,
from other places, it has been said also that traffic will
not only not be impeded but it will be better with the
development completion at the intersection of St. Cloud and
the Boulevard than it is to date, that may be correct,
however he would like to remind those that were here and tell
the Council that the same traffic engineer that was present
about two months ago said that it is easier to put a man on
the moon than it is to predict the traffic at Katella and Los
Alamitos Boulevard, at the same time it will be easier to
predict the traffic at St. Cloud and the Boulevard. Mr.
Sarte made reference to the man who was the second speaker,
stated that everything he said was right, and everyone knows
that this development would never have been proposed for
anything south of Westminster Boulevard. He made reference
to an issue brought up by a lady at the last meeting,
specifically that Rossmoor residents have no other things to
work with in terms of tools, they have no elected
representation, no governmental agency of any kind that the
people can go to, therefore some things are necessary. He
also recalled waking one morning to find a very large box
adjacent to his backyard, he has been told by many that the
office buildings are aesthetically pleasing, however it was
not agreeable to him to have people on the fourth floor that
could look down into his yard, with that building he then
changed his financial institution and advisor, has never
frequented the restaurant, and said he will continue that
practice if this project is approved.
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Mr. Jerry Anderson, Seal Beach, said with all of the hearings
that have been held it places the Council in good stead given
the amount of input, however with that having been said, he
personally may be more confused. Mr. Anderson expressed his
belief that there will be a development on the Bixby property
as a result of the hearings, that is reasonable, presently
Bixby has the ability to go forward with the development of
what is referred to as the default plan, that is a
possibility, it may be alright to say Bixby should not
develop yet who would not want to develop their own' property,
that is not logical or realistic, in that light the City
should attempt to secure the best deal it can for the City
and the residents of the entire community. He noted that
Bixby wants to develop, they are a quality developer, they
have a great record in this City. with reference to traffic
on the Boulevard, Mr. Anderson pointed out that it is not
called Seal Beach Lane, it is called a Boulevard, explaining
that there is a reason for that, an arterial highway designed
to transport and move traffic and cars, if this were a
development on a side street there would be objection, the
shopping center is placed exactly where it should be. He
mentioned that each time there is a local election there are
two things identified as the major problems of the City, the
amount of utility users tax and the two lane capacity on Seal
Beach Boulevard, both concerns being legitimate, then there
is rhetoric with everyone saying the City will be getting
more money back from the State, more grants, yet reality is
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that that is not so, the reality is that the federal
government will take more from the State then the State will
take more from the cities, thus the City needs to start
taking care of its own. He said if there is a genuine
feeling that the utility tax is too high and that another
lane both north and south on Seal Beach Boulevard is
necessary, there should be a concerted effort to determine
how the funds can be generated to do so, to that end, this is
a quality project and the developer, as a professional, knows
whether or not this plan will work, also, it is understood
that from this project there will be $1.2 million that will
go towards the addition of a lane both north and south bound
over the freeway, it is recognized that that amount will not
cover the entire cost but likely about a third, this an
opportunity that should not be lost, it is also understood
that there will be $1.5 million to the General Fund. Mr.
Anderson said he looks at this project as an opportunity, not
a disaster, and urged approval of this development. Mr.
George Smith, Rossmoor Regency Association Board Member, said
he understood that most of the objections he was to present
have already been made. However primarily the Regency
condominium complex located on Montecito Road will realize
the worst of the traffic given its location west of Seal
Beach Boulevard, also, the area does not need another
shopping center, a concern is that the Rossmoor Center may
become a ghost town, blighted area, if so, the quality of
life will be affected negatively and property values will
decrease. Mr. Smith conveyed the pride of the residents to
live in Seal Beach however said there are limits under which
one can continue to do so, requested that the Towne Center
proposal be rejected and that Bixby be asked to propose a
different plan with less adverse affects. Mr. Lucius Martin,
Seal Beach, asked what the Council wants their children and
grand children to see some five, ten or fifteen years from
now when they come to visit, what will Seal Beach be like for
the next generation. Said he remembers riding the bus to
school and seeing everything covered with cement and steel,
every tree and open space he could see was special, nature
allows children to dream and imagine the impossible, asked
that that not be taken away, no one should continue to bury
the trees and pave the open spaces, the future should be
considered. Mr. Bob BOlling, College Park East, said he
could not help but think that Bixby made their commercial
plan so unacceptable that everyone would welcome the
reintroduction of the mixed use plan, and to that they have
succeeded, it has also been said that Bixby has spent between
$600,000 and a million dollars to get this Towne Center plan
to the point it is now, whatever the cost why would Bixby do
such a thing, first of all his belief is that Bixby wants the
mixed use plan, he would personally like to see the proforma
for the mixed use, commercial, and default plans, it would be
of interest to see what kind of financial gain Bixby hopes to
reap over the next seven or so years, even if the mixed use
plan had the lowest return it is felt Bixby would prefer it,
again one would ask why, yet Bixby thinks long term, their
goal is to reclaim the land of AFRC. Mayor Brown noted that
the direction of the comments were not appropriate for the
issue under discussion and invited Mr. Bolling to address the
Council out of public hearing if he desired. Ms. Fran
Johnson, Seal Beach, noted it has been said that the Council
could not respond to questions for anything not listed on the
agenda, yet the Bixby proposal is on the agenda. Ms. Johnson
asked who will be responsible for the upkeep of the area
after Bixby develops, the trash, water, gas, police and fire
protection. The small town of Seal Beach will have a big
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traffic shopping center, all know it will not help Rossmoor,
the town will not be small any more, when she came to Seal
Beach there was a fuss because the Hill area was coming, and
it was said that taxes would go up, with this center the big
stores will take from the small stores, that has been seen
before, in five years it will just be empty stores. This
plan is of no advantage to anyone, the trees have lived
longer than anyone present, they are part of the history,
people fought for Gum Grove park, let's fight for these
trees, if something must be built the entrances should be on
either side and leave the trees. She said to her knowledge
none of the Bixby family resides in the area, they go home
and Seal Beach ends up with the results, asking again who is
going to pay for the additional police and fire services, is
that going to come out of what the City anticipates as
revenue. Ms. Anne New, College Park East, said her comments
were in response to a statement of the environmental
consultant at the last meeting whereby the solution of the
consultant to exposure of high levels carbon monoxide was to
confine the elderly people within the walls of the rest home
facility. To that Ms. New asked about the rest of the
people, the consultant did not address that problem,
Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, and College Park East will be exposed
for eight hours a day to unsafe levels of carbon monoxide,
because it is colorless and odorless it does not change the
fact that it is a lethal gas, according to Ms. Culbertson
there are already levels that are in excess of standard
safety limits. Ms. New claimed that it is the moral
obligation of the Council to take this into consideration and
not make a ruling until it is found out what studies have
been conducted and the results of the findings, this is not
about another project, this is about the quality of their
lives. Ms. Lynda Thomason, College Park East, said she was
speaking for herself and many others that have not forgotten
the golf course mixed use plan, the first plan submitted by
Bixby, it was their first choice. She noted the scroll being
unrolled through Council Chambers which she said contained
signatures of one thousand nine hundred thirty one people who
are opposed to the Bixby Towne Center, all asking to be heard
in this way, all are citizens who stated on this petition
that they not only oppose the Bixby Towne Center, they all
prefer residential development, not commercial, the
signatures are in addition to the one thousand three hundred
fifty signatures submitted last week from Rossmoor, the
combined total, all opposing the Towne Center plan being over
three thousand, possibly the largest number of signatures
presented to a City Council for any reason. MS. Thomason
requested that the Council listen, they do not want
commercial, they prefer golf course homes. Mr. Frank Laszlo,
College Park East, noted his involvement with the City since
1976, fifteen years on the Council, and stated that this
project has been before him and the residents of College Park
East in various forms for fifteen years, three years ago the
Environmental Quality Control Board unanimously refused to
certify this project of commercial development, the first
time the EQCB has refused to do so, then the Planning
Commission voted the project down. The EQCB minimally
approved the project because it legally had to, if they could
have disapproved it they would have, and as they did three
years ago, the Planning commission disapproved the project
because they felt it was inappropriate for the City, now it
is before the Council. He said this is the biggest project in
the history of Seal Beach, and evidently purposely rushed
through, why are special meetings being held like today,
Tuesday, when the regular meeting is merely six days away,
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why is the normal process not being followed, this project
before the Council even before the minutes from the Planning
Commission could be printed for review, the Mayor and City
Manager should be doing something about this process
otherwise they should be blamed. Mr. Laszlo said this
project has four unmitigatable significant environmental
impacts, with the previous project and likely this one too,
there is a reduction of open space and farmland, worsening of
air quality, a significant increase of traffic, and the
aircraft noise over the project, if this project is approved,
particularly on the fast track, it will set a precedent for
any development in the future of this City regardless of the
environmental issues. Mr. Laszlo noted that the main issue
of the Council and recall elections held during the past two
years was this project, in both cases the opposing
candidates, who made statements at the last meeting,
supported Bixby and lost by margins of nearly two to one, the
current Councilmember defeated them both times. He said if
this project is approved the Council will be disregarding the
citizens of College Park East and many citizens of other
areas of the City, as a voice of experience he would predict
this will cause major problems for the Council and the City,
in recent past the Council has worked together, prior to that
this was a divided City, if this project is approved it will
once again be a divided City with unhappy times.
Ms. Julie Goodman, Los Alamitos, born and raised in Rossmoor,
also representing Cottonwood Christian Center, stated her
opinion that the Bixby plan should be reconsidered, also,
something done to help and upgrade the Rossmoor Shopping
Center. She reported there are people from Los Alamitos that
would like to see a church or housing or a community facility
where children can go after school, if the Center is
developed it will take away business from the Lucky store,
the low priced theater will be gone, there will be nothing
for the children in this community, this plan should be
looked at in terms of the future of the people who live here,
thought should be given to something that will better the
communities of Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, and Seal Beach, again
making reference to a church, housing, and something for
children, also something to help the Rossmoor Center with
more stores, more business, something that will not split the
community, if the Center is built there will be people come
in from gang neighborhoods, graffiti, unsafe for children.
Mr. Bob Nelson, owner of a Rossmoor property, said in looking
through the telephone book yellow pages he found that within
an eight mile area there are eleven shopping centers, that
does not include the strip malls that are everywhere, there
are one hundred fourteen churches within that area, there are
eleven board and care facilities, the average is an eight to
eighteen month stay and then there is a turn over, stating
there are plenty of those types of facilities, whether it be
a book store, movies or whatever, more is not needed. As far
as the traffic and everything else, the Bixby people,
lawyers, and all involved in this project, this is a big
money project for them, they are in fact making money while
being present and listening to the public object, they will
not be driving the Boulevard every day when the project is
complete, rather, it will be the people of Rossmoor and Seal
Beach that will be traveling the street with their children
every day, and if the Council will look around it is his
belief that it will be found that this project is not needed
here.
11-17-98
Mayor Brown said he would not close the public hearing
however he felt it would be to the advantage of the public to
hear comments from the developer and the Council. Mr. Irwin
Anisman, Rossmoor resident and President of the Rossmoor
Homeowners Association, said he wished to add a point to his
remarks of last week, his fear is that some members of the
Council feel that after a year of going through this process
that they are going to have to vote for something, that which
is before them, the commercial plan, that is pressure,
however in his opinion the members should not feel that way
because this process has been very useful, it has not been a
waste of time and effort, rather a learning process, learning
about the environmental impacts of this type of development,
land use, fiscal tradeoffs, and most importantly the desires
of the interested parties, particularly the residents of the
surrounding communities. It can now be seen that this plan
has been flawed from the start, that is alright because all
make mistakes, however it is unforgiving to not learn from
those mistakes and to repeat or make them permanent, there is
a chance to undue that. He said if this comes to a choice
between a commercial center and the default plan the default
plan is preferable, there would be fifteen acres of
commercial development along Seal Beach Boulevard instead of
forty-eight acres, yet that is not the only choice, this can
be turned down and the desire expressed for a viable
alternative, there have been elements of such alternatives
expressed at these hearings based on homes and sensible,
viable commercial, and it would make sense for Bixby to
consider such an alternative now rather than later, the City
would have the support for this approach and it will be seen
in the long run as far for the best. Ms. Mary Jones,
Rossmoor, said that Orange County is a nice place to live
thus far despite the traffic congestion and smog, that
forecast to get worse whether Bixby develops or not. She
noted a news article this date citing the annual statistics
on satisfaction in Orange County which determines why Orange
County rates are much higher than its neighbors to the north,
people are happy here because they do not have to deal with
quite as much traffic congestion, smog, etc., and read an
excerpt from a UCI study on the quality of life, better here
than Los Angeles despite growth although housing and traffic
are not the best anywhere. In Orange County the region's
biggest problems are transportation and traffic congestion,
population growth and development as well, twenty percent of
the survey rated air, water, and environmental pollution as
the greatest problem, that compared to Los Angeles. Ms.
Jones suggested that this area not become another Los
Angeles, her feeling is that this development is helping
Orange County race towards being like L.A., having grown up
in an undesirable neighborhood living in Rossmoor has been
her dream come true, her concern is with the quality of
people who may come with this development and its negative
aspects. Ms. patricia Alexander, Rossmoor, pointed out that
there was a shooting at the Chevron Station at St. Cloud, and
noted that she had previously mentioned the concern of people
with this development bringing more outsiders into the
community, what they are doing is already being felt, and not
long before this there was a shooting at another station at
Katella, they are moving down Seal Beach Boulevard and will
soon be on the other side of Pacific Coast Highway. Ms.
Shirley Bailey, resident of Rossmoor, said she does not
believe that developers have the freedom they did some forty
years ago to maximize the use of their property at the cost
of the residential homes around a project, that seems to be
what these meetings are about, by being good neighbors to
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11-17-98
,
find a middle ground for the businesses to make a profit and
the rights of the people of the surrounding community to the
peaceful enjoyment of their homes. Her understanding is that
the projected three thousand plus parking spaces includes the
very large church to the north of the shopping center in the
green belt that .is seen on the plans, as to the church it is
understood that it is to house some thirty five hundred
parishioners, however it does not seem that there are thirty
five hundred people clamoring for another church, therefore
it is doubtful that a church of this size can be referred to
as a local church thus a great number of people will be
coming from outside of the area, and mentioned that a
statement was made a couple of meetings ago that the church
would likely hold only two services a week because of people
traveling a considerable distance, thus does that mean that
this large, expensive complex would be idle, if one looks
around the community most all of the churches rent space to
other denominations and to non-profit organizations. Ms.
Bailey said this raises serious questions in her mind, not
only is there no idea what other uses this church may make of
their property and there is little control of what they may
use their property for, therefore, if this project becomes
inevitable what can be done to mitigate it, first, she would
prefer elimination of the church which would substantially
reduce the number of parking spaces and the resultant
traffic, second, she would like to see the four way stop
proposed at St. Cloud moved further north, her belief is that
that would not only allow traffic flow onto the Boulevard but
allow traffic flow between the two shopping centers as well,
it is far less likely that non-residents would choose to make
a left hand turn out of a new center to get onto the
Boulevard to make a right hand turn on St. Cloud when their
intention is to go north in the first place. She said she
would like to look at the beautiful green space to the north
of the project, a little reminiscing along with a little
wishful thinking from the early days of College Park East,
when College Park was built that community was denied the
convenience of neighborhood schools because of the proximity
to the airfield therefore their child had to be transported
to Rossmoor, for some reason the developer was not required
to leave open land for future school sites as was done in
Rossmoor, that later became Rossmoor Park, yet open space had
been promised College Park East in the form of a regional
park to be located between Lampson and the freeway west of
their homes, a few years later that promise was broken when
the Seal Beach Council approved condos for that area instead
of a park. That brings one to today and a new dream for the
Bixby development, to which she suggested that all picture a
beautifully designed center with appealing shops, a first
class development, to the east would be an enhanced Old Ranch
Golf Course, a beautiful adult playground, to the north, on
that beautiful green belt shown on the plan, in place of a
church or housing a lovely sign that proclaims Bixby Park
with trees, picnic tables, people strolling through the
shopping center towards the Park entrance with food, drink, a
newspaper to enjoy in the Park, to the east there would be a
soccer field and baseball diamonds for a healthy environment
for the children of the community, and there is a grateful
community thanking Bixby for their foresight by providing the
required open space to keep the growing school population
busy with the kinds of healthy activities that ward off
vandalism and gangs, not only enhance the value and enjoyment
of the community but the value of the commercial property
surrounding the homes. Ms. Bailey expressed her belief that
if an alternative like this were considered all would be
11-17-98
winners. Mr. Hank Manzo, College Park East, said he was
pleased to see the Council listening to his neighbors from
Los Alamitos and Rossmoor, and referred to the Sartain family
as a legend in the community, and he agrees with Mr. Sartain
in opposition of the plan under consideration although
possibly for different reasons. Mr. Manzo referred to
himself as a twenty-nine year resident, involved in the
distribution of fliers, etc., to which he said for many years
there was no CPE representation by elected officials, since
then there have been two representative elected officials,
even with the failed recall effort, those that moved the
recall forward are nice people, just zealous about what they
want to do. Mr. Manzo said he would like the College Park
East community to talk to one another again, would like the
Council to not separate the people by voting for the present
plan, noted that the mixed plan has not been officially
presented to the Council, that plan was voted down not once
but twice, now it is coming to the surface, stated that Seal
Beach and College Park East are the best places to live and
if the Council makes the wrong decision the people who can
afford to leave College Park East will do so, they will not
take the traffic and all, to that he posed the question if
the City would allow Pacific Coast Highway to be widened
downtown, and urged that the Council not let this happen to
their area of the community, College Park East has always
been supportive. Ms. Dorothy Whyte, College Park East
resident since about 1975, displayed a copy of a January 24,
1985 newspaper with the headline announcing a gala pier
reopening the following Sunday, to which she noted that the
pier was fixed, has burned twice, is falling down again,
announced also the sale of school property, which did not
occur, Old Town Wine and Gourmet no longer exists, and then
there is reference to Bixby, they continue to exist, why,
because there are two persons in the community who dislike
Bixby so much they are willing to threaten and posture, make
derogatory statements about those who support Bixby efforts.
She said the election that was referred to was not a mandate,
the people were told that open space was an option, there was
no Plan B, no default plan, but there was and there is, if
this plan is allowed she will tell all again that the current
Councilmember said that College Park East would choose what
goes onto the Bixby property, that promise was broken, people
have asked why Bixby doesn't develop another plan, the answer
is the that Councilmember has had two and a half years to
have a neighborhood meeting to determine what was wanted on
this property, that has not happened, phone calls are not
taken, the representative is trying to destroy the
Neighborhood Association so that there will be no open
communication in College Park East whatsoever. Ms. Whyte
said this is not the fault of Bixby, the commercial
development is not wanted, now there is a potential of Bixby
going to the default plan with the possibility of losing the
tennis club which is a facility that CPE needs, at this point
there should be an effort to resurrect the mixed use plan.
Mr. John Unrath, College Park East, asked why the Bixby
project should be built in that speaker after speaker has
said why it should not be built, three thousand plus
signatures say,it should not be built, yet the Council must
make the final decision on this project, to build the project
requires a declaration of overriding need by the Council in
order to overcome the unmitigated environmental effects of
this project, what condition would there be to justify an
overriding need, maybe it could be cultural should the Orange
County Performing Arts Center decide they would like to
locate in Seal Beach, perhaps it could be aesthetics should
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the Getty Museum want to locate in Seal Beach. What this is
is just another big box shopping center, upscale people it
has been told, maybe justification could be more green space,
park space, or the tennis courts, on the other hand much
green space is being lost, losing trees, and open area, in
his mind this tradeoff is not justification of an overriding
need, in a similar vain, could justification be public safety
with getting a substation, duplicating the existing Rossmoor
substation, maybe the ten to fifteen percent improvement of
drainage could be justification but even that is not
sufficient for a declaration of overriding need, a world
class golf facility that he is not able to play on, an
alzheimers care facility and hotel built on the noisiest,
most air polluted area in Seal Beach and next to the busiest
freeway interchange in the world, what is the overriding need
for putting those facilities in that location, yet Seal Beach
needs the money, the sales tax revenue looks good. Starbucks
or the drive through drug store, neither seem to be
justification for an overriding need, it was said during the
presentation that the drawing area for the shopping center is
a three mile radius, to which he questioned what is in that
three miles. Mr. Unrath said he would concede commercial for
a moment, assume that Seal Beach needs the money more than
anything else in the world, this would be the reason for a
declaration of overriding need, he then inquired if the
Council really knows what it is voting for, once the zoning
is changed from R-G to C-2 the R-G zoning will never come
back to that property, there needs to be certainty that it is
commercial that is wanted, if the declaration of overriding
need is really that Seal Beach needs the money then the City
would have lost twice. The alternatives to the big box
shopping center are no project or big box, nothing in
between, no one has bothered to look at alternatives, to
which he inquired if anyone has looked at the Town and
Country Shopping Center in Palo Alto, he has been there,
shopped there, it is beautiful, it is a money making, upscale
center that any city would be proud to have. A motion to
change the zoning must be carefully crafted, be exact,
otherwise Seal Beach is painting an undetermined future,
promises of upscale, possible interested parties, projections
by the developer's consultants, and guesses about revenues,
on the chance that Seal Beach will get the revenue it needs,
the EIR says what the City will give up for this, and he
would not bet a declaration of overriding need on that. Ms.
Kathy Fife, College Park East, described her home as backing
to Lampson Avenue and from her kitchen window she can see
open fields and the end of the runway. Ms. Fife noted that
the mixed use plan was turned down by the Planning Commission
in 1994, the present Councilperson was a member of that panel
at the time, one of the reasons was the safety of future home
owners, in harms way became a slogan of those who said in
good conscious they could not concede to allowing any homes
to be built in the path of air traffic, months later comes
about a plan on paper and it includes not homes but a church
for more than thirty-six hundred members, no noticeable
outcry from the doomsayers of the mixed use plan for the
safety of church members is heard, it was later reported that
the Council representative is telling those who ask
privately, don't worry about the church, there is not going
to be a church, public hearings are being held, people have
their say both for and against the church and the City
officials sit quietly. Ms. Fife made reference to an October
30th article relating to the proposed Towne Center which
stated that due to the overwhelming unpopularity of the
proposed commercial development City officials were meeting
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privately to devise alternatives to make this plan more
attractive. She said it is reported that this scaled down
plan includes removal of the church and replacing it with
about one hundred twenty-five moderate/low income housing at
Lampson and Seal Beach Boulevard, again, where are those who
publicly cried out in harms way to the idea of homes on the
golf course, even if these units are built at Lampson and
Seal Beach Boulevard and not on the golf course are they not
in the flight path, the CPE Council representative herself
said at the last public hearing that the C-5 takes off and
flies over the bridge, not a word of outrage is heard. Homes
in the mixed use plan were supposedly going to over-crowd the
classrooms and overwhelm the school system yet now not a word
of concern over the number of potential students that would
become residents within these units if heard. If the mixed
use plan is not an option today then why would a mixed use
plan that fits the City officials agenda today be an option.
There is always talk about community and that the people
should work together for the common good, if that were the
true sentiments behind the forces why then did not the
Hellman project absorb some of the burden of this commercial
development and why, as word has it, were the Hellman
representatives allowed to submit a fee to the city in lieu
of the responsibility to provide some low to moderate income
housing, instead, it is planned, as has been stated numerous
times, to stick the good of Seal Beach with the residents of
College Park East, College Park has never been a part of the
community and as of today she did not believe ever will be.
Ms. Fife said in two elections the people of College Park
East voted to stand behind the Council representative seated
here tonight, she convinced the voting majority that the
Bixby development could be stopped in total, it is thought
that she has earned that right to try her hand at doing just
that, therefore would suggest that the Council vote down the
commercial plan, do not intervene with your own agenda or
modified version of this plan but instead allow the College
Park representative and her followers to follow through with
their assurances that Bixby can be stopped cold from doing
anything. The trial balloons that are showing up involve
transforming this plan into a different form of a mixed use
plan and suggests to her that such a variation of the plan
has been in the works all along and that the church was
simply a facade to conceal that District Four was going to
take all of the commercial development that the City needs to
raise revenues to run the real Seal Beach and to take all of
the City's obligations to provide some housing for families
of low and moderate income, then the real Seal Beach retains
its character as a residential community and District Four
becomes a part of the City on the other side of the tracks.
Ms. Fife asked that this plan be voted down and let the chips
fall where they will or schedule a referendum where the
voters vote their preference among the actual real
alternatives, not alternatives such as Bixby's property
becoming open space. In closing, Ms. Fife said she was
reminded of the town hall forum hosted in this Chamber by
former Councilmember Forsythe following the signing of the
MOD agreement, a District Four resident voiced that she had
voted for the current College Park East representative yet
certainly did not want commercial, another resident said
under her breath yet in earshot of others that commercial is
what you are going to get, was it not then that the fate of
District Four was decided during secret meetings between City
officials and Bixby and without the knowledge of the public
involved. Ms. Fife said this is the opportunity for the
Council to show the people that the votes have not been
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signed away in advance but is based on the sentiment of the
residents against this plan. Mr. Jim Checkman, College Park
East, stated that he is an original homeowner and a member of
Old Ranch Country Club, said he is afraid he hears conspiracy
in the air, yet wished to speak about agendas. Mr. Checkman
said at the last meeting two members of the Club stated their
support of this plan, he has been a member of Old Ranch for
fourteen years and said Bixby has been promising a new golf
course if their plans were approved, they lost the plan that
was withdrawn and now they are holding out a carrot for a
beautiful golf course, he would like to have it, yet at what
price. He noted the considerable comments at this meeting
with regard to the divisive nature of what is going on in
College Park East, there have been two nasty elections and
there is still considerable ill will brewing in College Park,
yet it appears there is one thing that all agree on and that
is that this plan is not in the best interest of College Park
East. with regard to agendas, he said he realizes that the
City needs revenue, with the closing of the Boston Store some
sales tax base was lost, however, if this plan is voted down
asked what are the alternatives, there is the alternate,
default, plan, that means that Bixby can develop the three
parcels of land that are zoned commercial, the tennis court
property, the corner where the gas station used to be at the
Boulevard and Lampson, and the triangular piece of land
adjacent to the Mobil Station on the Boulevard. The golf
course is the gem of the Bixby holdings in this area, so if
the tennis courts go they will put in something that is
compatible with the neighborhood, commercial but compatible,
revenue bearing, hopefully commercial means a sales tax base,
on the corner it is not large enough to do a great deal yet
it does not seem that someone will put in something that is
not economically feasible, therefore, he would say one of the
alternatives is to let the zoning stay the way it is, the
City is under no requirement to change the zoning, when the
City annexed this area of the City Bixby knew the ground
rules under which they had to operate, and mentioned that a
number of years ago he was one of the people who voted to
allow Bixby to develop their office center because he felt it
was a reasonable plan. He offered that this 'plan adds
nothing to the quality of life in their neighborhood, a huge
parking lot is not needed, if one walks along Seal Beach
Boulevard a number of trees will be seen with a red dot on
them, to him that is ominous as being the trees that have to
go, if Seal Beach Boulevard is widened it must come off that
part of the land, a bicycle lane, a walkway, and another lane
of traffic, a number of the trees will have to go, it has
been said that they would replace four to one, with what,
three, five or eight inch trees that will not even develop in
his lifetime, therefore if any unanimity is wanted in College
Park East this would be a chance to heal some of the wounds
and turn the plan down. Ms. Sartain, Rossmoor, displayed a
communication that had not been previously displayed stating
they did 'not want homes on the Old Ranch golf course, wants
forty-eight acres of commercial development', this containing
nine signatures. Ms. Sartain stated she was against the
Bixby Old Ranch Towne Center, she does understand that Bixby
builds good projects, noted that she moved to suburbia in
1960, continues to live there yet it is no longer suburbia,
at that time there was no 405 or 605 freeways, there was a
grove of beautiful eucalyptus trees that one walked through
at the Boulevard and Lampson, the ocean could be heard as
well as the playing of the bugle from the Navy Base. She
noted that things have changed a great deal since then,
however people still maintain what was then, a sense of
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community and a pride of ownership, one of her main concerns
is that that continues, as to traffic, those who are original
owners say every year that the traffic is getting worse, that
does not relate to this development and what the traffic is
going to bring, it is what is now happening, people are
turning one way and another from Montecito, it is noticeably
worse, in fact becoming somewhat of a main boulevard in a
residential area. She said in 1994 the Guinness Book of
World Records placed the 405 freeway from Seal Beach
Boulevard to the 22 freeway as the busiest road in the world
at peak hours, therefore before any traffic comes from this
development there is plenty of traffic coming from the world,
from developments and what is taking place in the area. Ms.
sartain said she did not believe that crime has been
addressed, the reason is that it makes one vulnerable, before
the movie theater with its late night movies and low cost as
an example the area was practically crime free, one could
leave their house, not lock the door and never worry, that is
not now so and has happened since things have opened up and
people have come from who knows where, happening more and
more, this development will be inviting people to it, also it
has not been stated what the Seal Beach police Department or
Orange county Sheriffs think may happen in terms of traffic
and crime with this new development. She mentioned that a
new Ralphs super anchor market has been discussed for the
development, made reference to a Vons market in a shopping
area that she frequents in Long Beach on Atlantic Avenue in
the Bixby Center, a wonderful market, that is the only market
for the entire of that area where there are more houses, yet
here there will be four markets on Seal Beach Boulevard which
is too many. Ms. Sartain referred to August, 1995 at which
time pamphlets were circulated showing the plan for
development on the vacant land behind the golf course and
across from Rossmoor center, there were low priced and
upscale houses, big eucalyptus trees, little lakes from
Lampson to Montecito, the Boulevard to Los Alamitos, where
water stood after a rain, that plan appeared to be
acceptable, later it was read in the newspaper that the Old
Ranch Towne Center was planned for that land with four
hundred thousand square feet of commercial/retail stores
instead of houses, boxed trees instead of the heritage
eucalyptus trees, and thirty-one hundred parking spaces
instead of the little lakes that were meant to alleviate
flooding, this is when the groundswell of alarm began, that
is when the people realized that the Towne Center was a bad
plan, people saw what would happen, that they would be unable
to maintain a sense of community and pride of ownership that
Rossmoor and the entire area enjoys. She concluded that
homes develop community spirit and commercial buildings do
not, her question then is what would it take to bring. the
previous mixed use residential plan back. A member of the
audience noted that this is the only time that people will
have the opportunity to speak to this plan, the project will
affect people for years to come, people will go over their
time limit, and complained that appropriate attention was not
being paid the speakers. The Council responded that the
desire is to hear from all persons, however to hear the
comments of the Councilmembers the public hearing first needs
to be closed. Mayor Brown advised that the public hearing
will not be closed at this point, Council discussion of the
project and what could happen will be forthcoming, and the
public may wish to comment on that as well.
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It was the order of the Chair, with consent of the Council,
to declare a recess at 8:55 p.m. The Council reconvened at
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9:05 p.m. with Mayor Brown calling the meeting to order. For
information of the public, Mayor Brown noted that the Los
Alamitos football game is generally shown on Tuesday
evenings, it is not this evening due to this meeting, however
will be shown on Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.
Mayor Brown said the applicant would now be asked to make a
closing statement, there will be comments and questions
following. It was confirmed that the public hearing was not
being closed at this time.
Mr. Ron Bradshaw, Bixby Ranch Company, the applicant, stated
he was not present to provide any revelations in terms of new
information this evening, however in brief summary did wish
to reiterate that Bixby has always supported the planning
process that has included the local community and the
participation of the City, the project under consideration is
an example of having gone through that process, this land use
has been evolving over the past sixteen months, many changes
and modifications have been incorporated into the plan, all
within the spirit of cooperation with the City working with
the applicant to reach those changes and modifications, the
final result represents a superior development concept for
commercial in this area as outlined in the City's MOD, the
final plan and development agreement reflect a master plan
that is both productive land use of the site and is
responsive to the objectives of the City. He said he knows
that it is understood that the default plan would bring many
of the impacts without the compensating mitigation nor the
benefits agreed to by the applicant in the development
agreement. Mr. Bradshaw stated that Bixby is looking forward
to a positive vote on this application, and noted that the
consultant team was present to respond to any questions.
Councilman Yost noted the number of questions relating to
traffic and cut-through traffic, and inquired of Mr. Bradshaw
if he had any ideas as to how this could be made a more
superior project. Mr. Bradshaw stated since the last Council
meeting there have been a number of discussions with regard
to the cut-through traffic issue, the final plan that is
before the Council this evening, even though there is no
conceptual plan displayed in that there was not enough time
to make the changes, the plan now shows that the City will
have a signal operation at st. Cloud and Seal Beach Boulevard
that does not have a movement that goes from the Center
directly across the Boulevard onto St. Cloud. The Mayor
asked if that would require moving the project northward.
Mr. Bradshaw confirmed that the project was also requested to
be relocated northward one hundred sixty feet so that there
would be no part of the project south of st. Cloud, the final
tract map reflects that modification, therefore the cut-
through traffic has been addressed, the access to the Center
has been looked at in terms of not encouraging any activity
from the Center cutting through to the Rossmoor community.
Councilman Yost asked if there has been any resolve with
regard to the concerns for the trees. In response, Mr.
Bradshaw said it has been heard that the trees would be
completely removed with the widening of Seal Beach Boulevard
yet it is only a small portion of the Boulevard, about half
way between Lampson and St. Cloud that actually gets widened,
once one gets through the transition area where there is a
free right hand turn from Lampson going north on the
Boulevard there is a small section that needs to be widened
into three lanes, there is no additional widening required on
Seal Beach Boulevard, the one positive aspect of moving the
project a hundred sixty feet north is that those trees that
11-17-98
would be south within the one hundred sixty feet would not be
disturbed at all other than those that are not healthy trees
or those that would "be impacted by the proposed meandering
sidewalk, and as one goes north on the site, when you get to
the access point that now goes through the old Home Fed
location, as the project moves north in that direction there
are really no trees that will be removed from that location,
yet there will be trees planted, there has not been
opportunity to engineer the impact on the trees but it is
expected to be favorable. Councilman Yost noted questions
from the public with regard to the church site, asking if
there is any response. Mr. Bradshaw stated that in addition
to moving the commercial site one hundred sixty feet north,
the City had asked Bixby to look at a residential plan that
included seventy-five units on twelve acres of property
rather than fifteen acres of institutional use, that plan too
has been submitted for Council review. Councilman Yost asked
if there is any park space proposed to which Mr. Bradshaw
confirmed that the site has two park components, that the
residential project area will begin beyond the boundary of
the existing Mobil Station, the entire frontage will be a
greenbelt area, further into the project there is between a
half to three quarters of an acre of open space that is
devoted to internal pocket parks and a two and a half acre
park that would be aligned on the rear side of the shopping
center, this results in eleven and a half acres of
residential development, a half acre of internal parks, and
an additional two and a half acre park. The Mayor mentioned
an expressed concern also with the tennis court site whereas
if the City did not maintain it the property would revert
back to Bixby. Mr. Bradshaw said that has been a topic of
discussion at a number of meetings, in the event the City
elected to not operate a tennis facility or a community
center or a parksite the property was to revert to Bixby, to
which he stated that Bixby has granted that they will give
the site to the City in fee with no reverter. The Mayor
asked if Mr. Bradshaw would address the allegation that Bixby
has the right of first refusal at such time as the AFRC
facility no longer exists. Mr. Bradshaw said there is no
basis for that assumption if there is no right of reverter,
Bixby would certainly give whatever form of quitclaim deed to
the federal government as the owner of the property, even
though they will probably wonder where it is coming from
since there is no right to give it to them, yet Bixby would
do that as an act of good faith, in addition Bixby would be
willing to sign a statement or have included in the
development agreement that in the event, unlikely event, that
that Base will ever close and it were offered to someone for
development that Bixby would not participate in that. Noting
that the tennis courts can not be turned into a clubhouse on
its own, the Mayor asked if Bixby would provide some
assistance with that. Mr. Bradshaw said that was another
issue that was brought to attention during the public
hearings that under the current development agreement Bixby
would provide $100,000 for the upgrade of that facility yet
under a previous mixed use plan that number was $750,000, it
has now been agreed to make that total compensation $750,000.
As to other benefits to College Park East, Mr. Bradshaw
mentioned that there are agreements to provide some drainage
modifications on Lampson Avenue, those are not project impact
improvements, this would be three additional catch basins at
locations between Basswood and Seal Beach Boulevard, in
addition, yet not knowing the first phase of any plan for the
College Park East drainage facility that is under study,
Bixby would make a contribution to the City, the City being
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the agency and this would be some funding to move forward,
the City could require that to perhaps be something that
affects the golf course, at this point there is not that
level of detail. The Mayor noted a comment that if some
mixed use was available with low to moderate income housing
Bixby would probably build that and not the commercial. In
response, Mr. Bradshaw said that question was posed to them
that if seventy-five residential units were put in place what
would prevent Bixby from building those and then come back at
some later date to try to convert the twenty-five acre site
to residential to then end up with the perceived desired
Bixby concept of having a mixed use project, the fact is that
they would agree to that simply because at this late date the
contemplation of any residential is far behind the curve in
terms of preparation for having a commercial project, the
commercial project at this point in time would require that
they start grading the property early in the year and
delivering it to Kitchell, their partner in the commercial
development, as early as possible, his guess would be that
given the nature of the residential, even through a tentative
tract map has been prepared, it is going to take a bit of
time to go out to the market and see which builders would be
interested in the site, therefore it is likely that they will
be committed to the commercial concept long before they can
implement anything on the residential. As to the type of
housing, Mr. Bradshaw noted that this has been a very short
period of time to contemplate details, however this would be
seventy-five homes, he would suspect they would be at least
comparable with the homes in the neighborhood, the City has
asked that Bixby provide $250,000 toward the low to moderate
component, the houses would be built to market, whatever that
may be, likely in the $300,000 to $350,000 range, in order to
get those down the City would need to use its available funds
to buy down, if the City chose to do that he would guess
there could be quite a lottery in the community of persons
who would like to be on the list to obtain one of those
homes. Councilmember Yost offered that people have raised
the names of other potential tenants of the Center such as
Gelson's or Bristol Farms as a more upscale market rather
than a Lucky or Vons. Mr. Bradshaw said to the reference to
a Bristol Farms coming to this location his guess would be
that they would not, that is not in terms of economics, they
simply need high visibility areas, as an example they have
opened a new store on Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach,
however if anyone is questioning the quality of the proposed
super market that might go into this location it is truly
going to be upscale and have many more amenities than one
would find in the older markets, the way that they market
today is quite different than the way the did it some twenty-
five to thirty years ago, therefore many of the components
that one would find in a Bristol Farms will be found in the
more current Ralphs, Vons, or Albertsons stores, stocking the
gourmet coffees, the salad bar islands, etc., he would
personally not discount the quality of the market even if it
ends up being one of the names that people are most familiar
with. In response to Council, he noted that there is no fast
food, drive through contemplated for this project, in looking
at the pads one would see that any fast food component would
typically be take out type of uses that would fit in nicely
with the food court in both shops one. and two, in both of
those areas one would find the kind of take out where food
can be eaten on the premise or carried out. Councilman Yost
inquired about making this a true Towne Center, a gathering
place in terms of reaching it by bike path, accessible to the
residents, a place that would be user friendly where people
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can congregate. Mr. Bradshaw responded that, as was said at
the last meeting, the idea was to try to incorporate a
feeling of bringing the shopping center, even though removed,
closer to the community, in doing that provide for an off-
road bicycle path of twelve feet in width so that it could
accommodate a sidewalk as well as a bicycle path, it is
suspected that other than the crossing at Seal Beach
Boulevard and Lampson, which is a controlled signal, that
would be the only place where a youngster would be riding a
bike at any point in time would be on a public street if they
chose to do that, which may turn out to be a very positive
thing for the City to incorporate into future planning, to
get the bike paths off the streets. Councilman Yost said he
believed that the potential book store tenant was Rozzolis,
to that some have commented that it is more of an adult book
store, and given the fact that there are many people in the
area that have children, and asked that if there is a tenant
book store could a more extensive child oriented section be
pursued. Mr. Bradshaw said no matter what company, he
believed that Mr. Jensen was trying to focus on obtaining a
quality book store for the Center, that a focus that is
believed would fit nicely into the community center concept,
the focus should not be on any particular store name, there
are many variations, yet the cast of tenants that Bixby would
like to bring to the Center would represent a broad spectrum
of uses that would fit into those shop areas and be
beneficial to the local community from the standpoint of the
village atmosphere. Councilman Yost asked how Bixby can
assure that the City will be comfortable with the tenants.
Mr. Bradshaw stated there is no real answer to that question
other than to let the Council know, like the major tenant
that was here last week, it would seem to be positive to have
that kind of a lead, with regard to the markets there are
three or four that are currently not in this market place
that would like to be in the Center, it is believed that the
same is true with the smaller tenants, the intent is the
quality of the Center, a project where the front of the
Center is lined with a forest of trees, it is only going to
attract quality tenants, people who can survive in that kind
of an atmosphere. Councilman Yost asked if Bixby will be
willing to allow the trimming of the trees to be done in
compliance with the guidelines of the Tree Committee, to
which Mr. Bradshaw noted that the issue of the trees came to
light early on with the Environmental Quality Control Board
and has been incorporated into the plan, the EQCB said
nothing negative can be done to those trees, and strengthened
that issue thereafter. Mr. Bradshaw pointed that many of the
trees between the golf course fence and the street need to be
taken care of, many are volunteers growing out of stumps,
Bixby has cataloged every tree down to six inches, the number
of trees is known, when you take the sidewalk through the
trees, there will be an opportunity to meander it in such a
way that it only takes out the trees that are desired to be
taken out, that should come out naturally, that is felt will
make the grove of trees even more healthy, there are trees
where the foliage comes all the way to the base of the trunk,
they are grown that way because golf balls have a tendency of
going off course therefore the trees act as a screen for the
balls that could potentially go onto Seal Beach Boulevard, it
is felt that the trees can be enhanced, the entire grove
could look healthier, and they have been told by the
landscape architect that what needs to be done is to cull out
those trees that need to be then plant new ones so that there
are different trees at different stages of development,
making a much healthier grove of trees in the long run.
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Mayor Brown said the Council may continue to ask questions
yet he felt certain there are questions from the audience as
well regarding the comments just made. Mr. Bradshaw noted
that the team of consultants hired by the City were present,
they are very qualified as is City staff, they have looked at
the issues, and said he would not want people to think that
the final resolution for the cut-through traffic is one that
is sponsored by the applicant, the City needs to have its
traffic engineers and independent engineers determine that
this is how the issue is going to be solved, a good thing
that was done was to move the Center site to the north which
pushes the activity up the Boulevard away from St. Cloud, it
was City staff that asked Bixby to consider that. He
suggested that any questions that may come up that have to do
with technical answers may be better addressed by the City's
technical consultants. Councilman Boyd inquired as to the
disposition of the Home Savings Bank building to which Mr.
Bradshaw responded that by moving the Center to the north
that building will be removed. The Mayor said it had been
anticipated that that building could be used for the north
substation and possibly Channel 3 Cable. Mr. Bradshaw
explained that that use will not be accommodated in that
structure, the plans have identified a piece of property just
north of the Center and south of Rossmoor Way to provide for
that City function, noted that a comment had been made that
this duplicates something that already exists in the Rossmoor
Center, where the Center has been generous and a good
neighbor in providing what is referred to as a temporary home
yet they could not provide a permanent location, therefore it
is not felt to be a duplicate effort. with regard to a
concern of Channel 3, Mr. Bradshaw said to his knowledge use
of the Bank building had never been given serious
consideration, an alternative however that was posed to them
that could have been given consideration, yet that is moot at
this point because of the project moving to the north the
bank facility will not be in place. Councilman Boyd
requested clarification that the project would be moved north
of St. Cloud, to which Mr. Bradshaw confirmed that the
project itself would be lined up with St. Cloud and move
north, with everything being moved north the area shown as a
service station would be a free standing building with the
footprint of the building directly in front of the drive into
the Center off of St. Cloud, his understanding of the
movement that the City is trying to achieve would be to
provide for all of the movements at that signal, with the
exception of the movement coming from the shopping center
straight into St. Cloud, St. Cloud would cross the street in
a direction into the Center but a vehicle could not then go
back out in the same direction. To a question of Councilman
Boyd, Mr. Bradshaw confirmed that the tennis club would be
deeded to the City in perpetuity with a $750,000
contribution. Councilman Boyd made reference to discussions
relating to the housing which was basically a low to moderate
housing element, he was not initially favorable towards that
primarily because there are neighbors to the north with
existing property values, and requested assurance that any
residential element will be market value homes somewhere in
the range of $350,000 to $400,000. Mr. Bradshaw responded
that when there is a higher density project of possibly one
hundred twenty-five units one could expect homes to be
accommodated in that range, when the City asked that Bixby
look at a seventy-five unit village that clearly takes the
units out of that category and one would now probably be
looking at homes of market rate, and even though the market
rates have not been looked at for some time, it would be
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anticipated the homes would be in the $300,000 range and
above, the hope would be that they would be higher than that,
they would be market driven and if it would support a
$400,000 home that would be fine, there is just not the
ability to report the range tonight, but it will clearly not
be a $230,000 starting point, rather considerably above that.
Councilman Boyd pointed out that there is a requirement of
the Housing Element for a certain percentage of low to
moderate income housing, to that some people commented that
the Hellman project paid off the City to not have to provide
that requirement, to which he requested clarification that in
effect the City is extracting another $250,000 to basically
allow a lottery type situation for the seventy-five homes to
allow purchasers to buy into this with the assistance of the
Housing Element. Mr. Bradshaw said he was not certain
exactly what the intentions of the City would be in
addressing that, he could merely say that on other projects
that Bixby has participated in when there is this kind of a
concern the cities did use their available funds to buy down
loans to a level they wanted to focus on, in this case this
is in lieu of providing an affordable housing element within
the project, to which he had stated could not be achieved
with a seventy-five unit development unless they were all in
that classification, the City would need to come up with a
program, which he had mentioned as a possibility however he
could not speak for the City in terms of how they will deal
with that issue. Councilman Boyd said he believed that Mr.
Bradshaw had the correct understanding, and there is a
deficiency in the Housing Element, however for the benefit of
the taxpayers they should know this prevents the City from
refinancing what is the City's equivalent of the purchasers
mortgage, the City's mortgage is the Redevelopment Agency
debt, this prevents the City from refinancing that debt to a
lower interest rate for a saving of about $300,000 to
$400,000 per year if the City were able to meet the
deficiency and refinance the debt. Councilman Boyd said he
felt certain that the City would look at this participation,
and this clarifies some of his concerns. A member of the
audience asked how far apart from one another are the trees
in the parking lot of the Center, citing the lack of shade as
a problem with parking lots. Mr. Bradshaw said he could not
provide a specific answer as to the distance however the
project architect may, the site plan shows that each row of
parking has some tree areas that are on each of the parking
aisles, unlike some shopping centers this Center is going to
have a great deal more landscaping, the percentage of
landscaping as compared to other centers or even set forth in
the City Code is exceeded by at least two percent, in part,
that is because you not only have a project that has a ten
foot frontage that the City would normally require but an
additional thirty feet of frontage where the entire
eucalyptus grove is contained, and then on-site each one of
the parking aisles has a compliment set of trees, not five
gallon trees but trees of substantial size. The member of
the audience asked if the driving range would be maintained
where it presently exists, to which Mr. Bradshaw pointed out
the location on the site map, yet to be determined is whether
there mayor may not be a public component. with regard to a
question relating to how the Marriott Care Facility, a hotel
and restaurant could be accommodated on the Lampson/Seal
Beach Boulevard site, Mr. Bradshaw explained that Marriott
Brighton Gardens have submitted its plans and elevations to
the City, with regard to the Senior Care Facility there will
be the site plan which will include elevations and
aesthetics, they have incorporated a plan that is felt to be
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quite handsome, will be sitting on a five and a half acre
setback area, even though on a triangular portion of the
commercial area it is well set back and behind a large tree
area already established on Lampson Avenue. It needs to be
understood that Marriott, the Towne Center and the
residential will all come to the City to be reviewed by the
Planning Commission and approved in terms of aesthetics and
proper land use, therefore there is another opportunity to
look at the aesthetic quality of the design that is under
consideration. Mr. Brian Gibbons, Rossmoor Center, spoke
from the audience, stating that he anticipated there might be
some objections to the submitted project, and if the proposed
project changes in any way as to size and scope would the new
proposal be subject to a new EIR review process. Mr.
Bradshaw suggested that CEQA questions would be best answered
by the EIR consultant, Culbertson Adams or the City Attorney.
The City Attorney responded that the question posed was a
legal issue, may be responded to by himself and the
consultant, stating that if there are significant
modifications that change the impacts of this project that
were not analyzed by the EIR, there would be additional
environmental review. The Council may be considering certain
modifications, some of which have already been analyzed by
the EIR, as were the alternatives, if the impacts decrease
there would be no need for additional environmental review.
That determination has yet to be made and will depend on the
direction of the City Council. Councilman Boyd asked if, in
an initial opinion, the issues discussed thus far at this
meeting would require recirculation of the EIR, the Housing
Element, the change of location of the project north of St.
Cloud, etc. The City Attorney advised that the consultant
should address issues such as traffic impact. with regard to
moving the project north and increasing the traffic
mitigation measures, immediate opinion would be that that
would not require additional environmental review.
Mitigation measures can always be added. Therefore if
modifications would decrease or improve a situation no
additional environmental review is necessary. The traffic
consultant should evaluate the traffic that would be
generated by the housing as compared to the church, and that
may already be in the EIR document. with regard to a concern
with the corner of Lampson Avenue and Seal Beach Boulevard,
Councilmember Campbell said that was one of the biggest
problem areas for College Park East people with the mixed use
plan because of over development, people complain about
traffic on the Boulevard and if the intersection at Lampson
is gridlocked the people of College Park will not even get to
the Boulevard, to that she proposed that land be set aside on
that corner for freeway on and off ramp improvements,
extensive improvements. She proposed moving the point of
entry back, which she pointed out on the conceptual site
renderings, to allow several hundred more feet to access the
freeway, that instead of the present left hand lane
maneuvering to access the 405, that would be a significant
improvement and could possibly require half of the acreage on
that site. She also mentioned having a problem with the
Senior Care Facility and hotel as they are noise and emission
sensitive uses, claimed too that the bridge is under the
flight path, this does not impact the crash zone yet it is a
noise impacted area and the air quality is poor, her
preference would be something like a nursery use, maybe a
Rogers Gardens type use that would also be a beautification
of the entry to College Park East which the people of the
area care about so much, the intent would be to not lose the
existing ambiance. She reiterated her suggestion to take out
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half of the development from that corner, go forward with
some significant on and off ramp improvements for the entire
community, down size the corner to a use that is not noise
sensitive or where people would worry about the air they
breathe, this is a wrong location for a hotel or Care
Facility, also, the Cal Trans Handbook talks of special
functions, schools, hospitals, and nursing homes that should
be avoided in traffic pattern zones, in her opinion the
proposal is an inappropriate land use and requested that
there be serious consideration of changing that use. With
regard to the driving range she noted that there is a
driveway onto Lampson at the curve, requested that the
driveway be taken out and the driving range access be
completely inside Old Ranch, it is a blind curve and not
acceptable, citing as an example the carnage on Lampson
Avenue. She pointed out the offer of $750,000 for
improvements to the tennis club and in turn requested money
for improvements to Lampson Avenue, a sidewalk, a wider bike
lane on the north side of Lampson, the block wall from the
curve to Heather Park needs to be upgraded and landscaped,
the curve needs to be regraded, an engineering study would be
necessary to do that, people travel Lampson too fast, that
can not be stopped yet possibly they can be stopped from
coming into the block wall, Lampson Avenue needs to be fixed,
it would be about $500,000 to $600,000 to fix the curve,
sidewalks would be about another $500,000, concluding that if
Bixby is going to impact the quality of life for those in
College Park East then the people want something in return.
Councilmember Campbell asked if the seven acre sod farm will
remain Recreational Golf or is that rezoned as C-2 also., Mr.
Bradshaw made reference to the site plan, pointing out that
with the residential, two and a half acres of the current use
would be incorporated into a park area, below that is the
golf course, not yet the final design, and whatever land
would be left as excess would remain under existing zoning,
not an expansion of the C-2. Councilmember Campbell noted
that as a concern in that this is a project of sixty-one
acres, a lot of land, there are other considerations that
need to be made, landscaping for Lampson, a wider bike lane
on Lampson to Heather Park, sidewalks, the northerly block
wall upgraded, the block wall taken down adjacent to the Navy
golf course, these are things that are needed for the
community that the City does not have the money for, to which
she asked if they would be considered. Mr. Bradshaw said in
terms of doing some of the things mentioned they would be
willing to make some modifications or improvements to the
walls yet some of that is not Bixby property, the owner of
the property would need to give consent, they could make a
contribution to take care of the wall issue, as to adding a
half million dollars to street improvements, it is believed
there will be some excess dollars that are going to be
available even after the $1.2 million that will be
contributed to the bridge, and he would encourage that those
dollars be spent on the north of Seal Beach to address those
various issues, in addition to the dollars that are going
straight to mitigation from the building of the project Bixby
is putting in an additional million dollars worth of traffic
improvements beyond that, including the reworking of the
signals at Lampson and Seal Beach Boulevard, St. Cloud,
Rossmoor Way, each one of those enhancements in terms of the
Smart Street program would give the City the opportunity to
incorporate those modifications. He said in terms of having
a sidewalk on the north side, from the Towne Center on the
south side all the way to Seal Beach Boulevard and Lampson
there will be an off-street bike path, it will be very easy
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for those who do not want to ride on the street to do their
biking, that would likely focus on those that are not skilled
riders and children, therefore it is not certain one would
want to replicate that same kind of condition on the north
side of Lampson Avenue, and with regard to the request for a
sidewalk on the north side of Lampson, Mr. Bradshaw noted
that there is nothing on the north side except a golf course.
Councilmember Campbell stated that the intersection of
Lampson and Seal Beach Boulevard is dangerous and if there is
a signal at Basswood it would be nice if children could
access the north side at Basswood and have a bike lane to
ride. In that case, Mr. Bradshaw suggested that possibly the
bike lane should not be on the south side but on the north
side and the transition could be made at Basswood, it is not
certain that there will be the need or demand for two twelve
foot wide bike lanes off-street. With regard to eliminating
the driving range roadway, Mr. Bradshaw said the issue is
whether or not there will be a public driving range, it was
included because it was felt it would be an opportunity for
the public to have access to the golf course, they can do
that at the driving range, and if that is not a perceived
benefit to the City he would recommended that there not be
the public driving range component, however there needs to be
access to it and if a plan can not be developed that would
produce a viable public driving range component, and that is
because the access can not be taken at a location that would
make it attractive to those who want to use it, the thought
would be to just not have that driving range component, the
existing driving range would stay where it is, to which he
reminded that there are probably a number of things that can
be done to deal with that particular issue, the City's
traffic engineers could talk to that, yet all of the
movements that were mentioned are going to occur at that
location anyway, that location has been chosen to make the
left hand movement out of the commercial portion that is
south of Lampson, the access point for the Senior Care
Facility, so there will be a left hand movement into that
site coming to the west from Lampson Avenue, it will also
allow for a left hand movement out of the Center back onto
Lampson to get back to Seal Beach Boulevard, therefore the
only movement that would be eliminated by moving the access
to the public driving range location would be the left hand
turn that would go into the driving range, also incorporated
in that is that the maintenance facility for the golf course
which now has access within one hundred feet of the signal at
Lampson and the Boulevard would have been coordinated back to
that location, so in terms of trafficability and safety when
one considers that access to the Old Ranch Country Club is
now going to take place at Basswood, there are no more of
those movements coming off of a curve at the Country Club,
his guess would be that there would probably be fewer of
those kinds of movements than there is today even considering
that the driving range would be there. A member of the
audience said the real issue that needs to be taken up is
coming out of Old Ranch, that is a serious concern, and if
there is such concern with accidents asked why has there not
been a stop sign installed, and requested an explanation to
show where the entry is proposed that will alleviate traffic
and accidents. Mr. Bradshaw again explained that when the
driving range is relocated the access to Old Ranch Country
Club would be at a signalized intersection at Basswood.
Another member of the audience said it appeared that the
Council was trying to come up with a better project, yet the
concern is with traffic, what was described was replacement
of the institutional use with residential which would be a
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saving of about four hundred trips a day, again, the essence
of complaints is with the traffic, to which she made
reference to page five of the EIR document. Mayor Brown
asked, with the traffic as it is today and when the project
is completed and the traffic mitigated as best it can, how
much of an increase in traffic will there be. Mr. Bradshaw
suggested that the City's consultant respond to that
question. A member of the audience said he believed that his
Council representative would agree that the weather is in a
El Nino system, raining almost constantly, a couple of years
ago there was a flood where the water came into his garage
and nearly into his Aster Street home, his understanding is
that the water drains from the Navy property and everything
from that direction flows into Lampson, his feeling is that
the problem is going to get worse because the weather is in a
rain mode, and asked what and how is this flooding going to
be prevented. It was explained that additional storm basin
facilities are a requirement of the project, also, that when
College Park East was built the properties were graded to
flow towards the golf course, which is not the natural
drainage, over thirty years the land has settled therefore
the water goes no where, some streets are worse than others,
water is intended to flow to Old Ranch then under the freeway
and through Leisure World. Ms. Barbie Meyer, Seal Beach,
said she did not believe there was ever the intention of
anyone to have a church on this property, the entire
presentation of having Cottonwood Christian Center, the
Center having been interested in the particular property, yet
at the Planning Commission persons indicated they did not
know of the proposal for a church, it is a sad commentary if
the people who put together this project used the church to
make it look more appealing, and before anyone knew of the
needs of the church it was billed as putting a Crystal
Cathedral in Seal Beach which is far removed from what was
desired, which is to build a church. Mr. John Merchant,
Rossmoor, said this is a proposal for a shopping center, the
intent is to draw customers from a three mile radius, yet
there is a lot of open space that will most likely remain so
for a long time, therefore where will the customers be coming
from. He proposed that if the shopping center is to be
successful is there any kind of guarantee from the developer
that five years from now they will be able to support the
shops that are there, will the tenants be able to keep them
open, noting that this Center will compete for the Rossmoor
dollars spent. He said he now travels north to shop, College
Park East people go towards Garden Grove, Leisure World can
not only be concerned with shopping but accessing the
hospital, again asking if the developer will give some kind
of a guarantee of success. A woman from the audience asked
about the change at St. Cloud and Seal Beach Boulevard, her
understanding is that there will still be a driveway going
across into the shopping center from St. Cloud yet it will be
narrower to access yet not exit, to which she said if it
would save a few trees it would be preferred that that signal
be left as is and the entry be further up the road, as one
comes off the freeway there is a very short left turn pocket
into Rossmoor, sometimes traffic is backed through the
signal, to create any more traffic problems for Rossmoor
residents or change the pattern of the signal would likely be
more than the people could bear. Another lady said if this
plan is approved could a mitigation measure be to make
Rossmoor a gated community to reduce the cut-through traffic.
The lady was informed that Rossmoor is County territory,
Seal Beach has no jurisdiction. Mr. Phil Fife, College Park
East, noted that there have been things brought forward at
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this meeting that were not previously known that are positive
such as the tennis club dedication and the increase of funds
therefore from $100,000 to $750,000, as it was with the mixed
use plan, and said he agreed with Councilmember Campbell as
to the problems with and possible improvements to Lampson
Avenue. Mr. Fife said what is bothersome to him is the money
that is supposed to be intended to benefit District Four,
when the office project was built there was an $lB,OOO
contribution by Bixby for traffic improvements on Lampson,
specifically to build three hundred feet of double rail along
the curve, Bixby paid the money, the rail was never
installed, and subsequently more people died. He asked what
assurance does District Four have that the $750,000 to
improve the tennis club and turn it into a full community
center will indeed be used for that purpose alone, not sand
on the beach or whatever, monies for traffic mitigation as
well. Members of the Council concurred with the concern,
asking if that money could be placed in a separate account,
designated for its specific intended use. The City Attorney
confirmed that through the Development Agreement monies could
be specifically designated for the tennis facility, the
Agreement also specifies that monies are to be used for
specific things such as the wall, landscaping, sidewalks,
etc. along Lampson. Mr. Fife said his point is that if that
is considered as an improvement to this plan it is no
improvement unless the money is locked down for the purpose
which it is coming for. With regard to the comment of
Councilmember Campbell relating to the driving range, Mr.
Fife said he agreed that an in and out left turn parking lot
at the end of the blind curve at the public end of the
driving range, the public driving the balls from west to east
and the members driving the balls from east to west, is a bad
situation, suggesting that the developer should think about
using the parking lot at the public end of the driving range
only for right turns in and out and use the existing tunnel
under Lampson for people to enter the driving range through
the parking on the south side of Lampson to access the
driving range, thus totally eliminating anyone turning left
into or out of the parking lot. The Mayor asked if that was
a possibility. Councilman Boyd said the Marriott Senior Care
Facility, hotel, and the restaurant share a driveway that
appears to be a four-way with a left turn into and out.of
that area that would pose the same problems. Mr. Bradshaw
said in terms of designing the roadway, the City Engineer
would be the individual that would design the road and the
access movements, a~d if the public driving range is not
perceived as being a benefit to the City it can be removed,
the only way that can be offered is if it can be viable,
moving the public and private ends does not make much sense,
rather, it would likely be better to have a project that does
not have that component, however, in terms of making it safe
his belief is that there are ways of dealing with the
situation short of putting in a signal at that location,
which is certainly an available alternative to the City so
that all of the movements are controlled, yet Bixby could not
even make a suggestion to install a signal there. While some
members of the Council sought a response from' the City
Engineer, Councilmember Campbell insisted that the people do
not want a traffic light at that location. Mr. Paul
Wilkinson, a principal with Linscott, Law and Greenspan, the
preparers of the traffic impact study on behalf of the City
and sub-consultant to Culbertson, Adams, said in reference to
the earlier question in terms of the project added, they had
analyzed twenty-six intersections with regard to the traffic
impact study, there were significant adverse impacts at six
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of the twenty-six, that does not say that cars are not being
added to those other twenty intersections yet they are not in
amounts that are significant and/or adverse when compared to
the criteria that the City uses, that being a one percent
increase in trat"fic when there is an adverse level of
service, thus there are six where there are potential issues.
The intersections that are most proximate to the site are
those at Lampson and the two freeway ramps of the 405/22 at
Seal Beach Boulevard, at the Seal Beach Boulevard/Lampson
intersection after improvements, the calculated ICU value,
intersection capacity utilization, think of that in terms of
percent of capacity at an intersection during peak traffic
hours and it is actually better than the existing condition,
that because the street got wider in greater proportion as
the volume got bigger, at the intersection of Seal Beach
Boulevard and the northbound ramps, that is somewhat of a
toss up at that location during the a.m. peak hour, the
future value is just a bit better than the existing, the
future value of the project and mitigation measures in the
p.m. peak hour is better than the background, that is
something that gets lost in conversations in terms of looking
at future service level values, they are not looking at
taking the project and adding project traffic to the existing
street system in a vacuum without any other development going
on in other cities, without any other traffic growth,
therefore the background condition, which is referred to as
the condition of existing volumes and because of background
growth keeps growing. Councilman Boyd said his understanding
of the reference is that if nothing is built on this property
and if nothing is done to the streets it can be guaranteed
that the predatory environment that exists between cities
will necessitate that Los Alamitos solicit and market to Mr.
Jensen and his Pacific Properties and all others, and Los
Alamitos will be happy to take them because of the revenue,
it is that simple, if Seal Beach does not take care of itself
first it will be taking care of its neighbors. What then is
understood is that there will be traffic background impacts
that will occur whether this project is built or not,
inquiring if that understanding is correct and if it is
significant. Mr. Wilkinson responded in the affirmative to
both, the background, particularly at the Lampson
intersection and certainly at the freeway on and off ramps
there are adverse levels of service at present, which is
obvious to everyone, without background traffic growth and
without a way to fund improvements, which is presumably one
of the elements of interest for this project, the conditions
will continue to get worse and worse and there will not be
mitigation, at least not sponsored by the project at those
locations, however if the City is fortunate enough to find
mitigation sponsored by someone else, an OCTA grant, or
whatever, which is understood the City has pursued in the
past, the improvements proposed as part of this project
actually wrap around those. He added that in his twenty
years of experience, where cities on the border will deny a
project, they will move across the city line, the traffic
will still be realized yet there will be no mitigation, and
certainly no sales tax revenue or benefits that go along with
the project, that has been seen to happen a number of times,
yet not necessarily here, and as the City's agent he is
giving information as they have evaluated it. He noted at
the Seal Beach Boulevard/Westminster intersection, because of
improvements that would be partially sponsored by the project
at that location, the future values with the project are
better than the existing values. Ms. Carla Watson, Catalina
Avenue, thirty-four year resident, said she had been informed
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that reference had been made earlier to a prior comment of
hers, and contrary to what others thought they heard, she had
said that if there is not a compromise there would be
commercial. Ms. Watson asked what is the rush tonight,
mentioning that it took a long time to get to Ponderosa,
Mola, and Hellman, stating that there have been good ideas
brought forth, people being conciliatory, ways to compromise,
a concern of hers being kids that drive the highway to Los
Alamitos High School, a traffic concern of hers, and if a
road is widened, no matter, it just fills up with traffic.
She stated she would also like to be a good neighbor to
Rossmoor, Seal Beach is a slow growth community, there are
elected people to be slow growth, in making reference to the
comment as to the 'real Seal Beach' said anyone who knows her
is aware that she walked the streets of Leisure World to
campaign against the Bixby office complex, yet there was an
opportunity to get a tree buffer adjacent to Rossmoor even
though they had no vote in the office matter, that was
because it was the right thing to do. There are concerns by
the people of Rossmoor, there are so many interests involved
in this, again asking why this project and the mitigation
have to be done so fast, people are hearing new ideas for the
first time, maybe there are even better ideas, is it now time
for the Council and the private people to sit and put all the
cards on the table, this can not be decided tonight.
councilmember Campbell said she agreed with the prior
comment, her preference would be to take a week'and sit down
with Mr. Bradshaw, there are concerns of Rossmoor and College
Park East, there have been some good ideas brought forward
that could be considered. Councilman Boyd indicated support
for the comments of Councilmember Campbell, however said he
would personally be somewhat fearful to call Mr. Bradshaw to
express concerns in that the people of College Park would
then deem there to be secret meetings, rather, this is a city
and there is no predatory environment, he would be happy to
have two members of the Council sit down with Mr. Bradshaw
and the Bixby Ranch Company and come up with a project that
all are happy with, yet every time that has been tried the
people claim secret meetings, to which he added that this is
the process in this country, the people of Seal Beach elected
the five sitting members of the City Council as their
representatives, and suggested that the Council be allowed to
do just that.
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Mr. Brian Gibbons, Rossmoor Center, Seal Beach, said often
when he stands before Planning Commissioners and
Councilmembers in various other cities he is standing in Mr.
Bradshaw's shoes, he only wished that tonight he could be
standing here presenting his retail project for the Rossmoor
Center property, in fact, this very same architectural firm
designed a similar plan for Rossmoor Center, one that he has
been working towards accomplishing up until three years ago
when Bixby pulled its mixed use/residential plan and pursued
a commercial alternative with the City's assistance. Up
until then he believes that the community's desire was to
have either low impact or no impact development in Seal Beach
including north of Leisure World, his plans would have
considered augmenting the existing retail uses with those
that residents and merchants said they would like to have,
their property is under developed yet their zoning allows
Rossmoor to increase the gross leasable area which will
enable him to reposition and expand certain tenants while
adding new ones under a carefully designed and phased plan,
many small stores have remained empty as he elected to keep
those spaces available for tenant relocation alternatives,
11-17-98
some leases were even bought out to make way for some
building redesign options. His belief is that the residents
want a modern, village type community center and they want it
at Rossmoor Center not across the street. Mr. Gibbons said
he does not object to responsible commercial development, for
over twenty-five years he has participated in or directed the
development of hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate
in Southern California and the Pacific Northwest, most of the
projects involved redevelopment, rezoning, and difficult
challenges to assemble land, work with communities, and
deliver a project which met everyones goals, in most cases
their development team received awards for exceptional
design, landscaping, and good planning, it is with this
background that the owners of Rossmoor Center hired him to
manage the redevelopment of their property, he learned to
know the owners of Rossmoor Center well before it was
purchased by them, there are two individual owners, they
started a private insurance company in the early 70's and
have since grown to over four hundred employees operating in
many states, the company has been headquartered in the San
Fernando Valley since 1975 and each of the owners continue to
live nearby, not unlike the Council they are family people,
conscientious and community minded individuals and astute
businessmen, there is no offshore ownership, no devious plans
to deplete real estate assets for tax reasons, or any other
of the absurd rumors he has heard about their ownership. Mr.
Gibbons said they are listening to the vote tonight as it
should represent the community's best interest and that
includes the Rossmoor Center, if by the vote tonight the
Council does not carry the will of the people in this
community and go ahead and approve high impact commercial
development on Seal Beach Boulevard then he will accept that
same direction for his redevelopment plan for Rossmoor
Center. He said the retail experts that he has consulted
with do not believe that two similar community centers can
feasibly co-exist across from each other in this location,
Rossmoor Center will consequently fail as a competing
community center, if by the Council vote it is said that
destination big box tenants is what this community wants then
he will expect the Council to be there when his turn comes.
He said he would ask why is the developer being allowed to
duplicate community center type uses across the street when
there can be other uses, he believes that the City feels the
Rossmoor Center will never be upgraded or maybe doesn't want
it to be, perhaps if the leaders behind this project included
him in their process everyone might have a better
understanding of him and his efforts to meet the community
needs at Rossmoor Center, he could only guess that since they
did not it could be because his plans might disturb their
special agenda. Regardless of the outcome tonight Rossmoor
Center remains a part of this community, it is a true
community center and the mainstay of all community centers is
the supermarket and drug store anchors, they are the mainstay
because they bring shoppers to the center, these are the uses
that attract the shoppers that patronize other merchants, if
the Old Ranch Towne Center project is to include a
supermarket and a drug store that will forever change the
complexion of the tenant mix at Rossmoor Center, and his
assessment is that it will not be in the best interest of the
community. He asked that the City put away the consultant
and brokers reports for a moment and use common sense, who
can say that the proposed project is not competitive with
Rossmoor Center considering that the proposed tenant mix
almost mirrors the Rossmoor Center, the City is getting
nothing different, the only use that fits into the retail
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category destination is the home center, the remainder of the
retail portion is the classic community center, supermarket,
drug store, gas station, bakery, food, cards, gifts, coffee,
and bagel store uses are just more of the same but with a new
look. Everyone would like to have the existing buildings at
Rossmoor Center modernized and that will happen, but the
community is understood to say that it also wants retail uses
that it doesn't already have, how come everyone on the
developer's panel insists that you believe that this is going
to be a destination center full of new stores when everyone
can see it is another community center, it is because they
used destination store type sales figures to enhance their
findings, if it is called a community center they have to
acknowledge that the over-inflated tax revenues to the City
will not be what you have been led to believe, then, if
properly analyzed the City might lend more support to the
mixed use plan originally submitted by the Bixby people. Mr.
Gibbons said he listened to their leasing broker tell the
City that together with his partners they have forty-five
years experience in consumer shopping habits and they say
that most of the shoppers will be attracted from outside the
area, yet he hears three long time residents of Seal Beach
who together have lived here more than a hundred years shrug
it off and say it isn't so, who is going to drive farther
into Seal Beach from outside the area to buy their groceries,
coffee, bagels, and fill their prescriptions when they can do
that closer to home. No, the City does not have a
destination center, what the City has is a community center
with the same tenant mix as Rossmoor Center plus one true
destination oriented tenant, so do something about it you
can. Mr. Gibbons said he was concerned about staff silence
to his request for a determination that the existing median
divider on Seal Beach Boulevard in front of Rossmoor Center
will not be compromised to adversely impair the access to
Rossmoor Center, as he feels it does based on the drawings
before the Council, this has been ignored in the EIR. As set
forth in Article I of the Annexation Agreement with Rossmoor
Center dated March 6, 1967, 'Rossmoor Center may install and
maintain as many driveways into the Center as it may
reasonably desire or deem necessary, this covenant runs with
the land. Mr. Gibbons paused for a moment to address the
information submitted at this meeting with regard to traffic
as it relates to St. Cloud, yet said his comments would only
be exacerbated more should the project be slid one hundred
sixty feet north as proposed.
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At approximately 10:45 p.m. Boyd moved, second by Brown, to
continue this hearing and meeting until such time the Council
determines to conclude same. It was also requested that the
Council declare a brief recess at the conclusion of Mr.
Gibbon's comments.
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AYES:
NOES:
Boyd, Brown, Campbell, Doane, Yost
None Motion carried
Mr. Gibbons said the engineers for the Old Ranch Towne Center
project have closed some of the median ingress and egress
points to Rossmoor Center in order to mitigate its increased
traffic generation, Rossmoor Center should not be bound to
litigate an after the fact determination because it was not
considered during this hearing. If the intersection is
expanded at St. Cloud Drive, or as proposed moved north, it
will severely impact the traffic flow to and from Rossmoor
Center, the plans before the Council do not disclose the
Rossmoor Center ingress and egress points at the Seal Beach
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Boulevard median, and requested City assurance that they will
remain undisturbed, this is not a staff or engineering issue
to be solved later. Mr. Gibbons said he has also asked staff
to recognize that Rossmoor Center is currently zoned to
increase its gross leasable building area by one hundred
thousand square feet in order to modernize and attract new
tenants, instead they have ignored his concerns that the
oversized commercial project presented by Bixby will usurp
the traffic already considered in Rossmoor Center's zoning by
the City's planners, even though he has not applied for
building permits yet the City can and should recognize this
increased traffic impact in connection with any change of
land use, to brush this off in the EIR as not being legally
required by CEQA is irresponsible, especially when the City
is calling on him to revitalize Rossmoor Center, simply, this
is misleading the community of the true increased traffic
impacts. If one wants to paraphrase Mr. Till, 'some retail
across the street on Bixby's land,' don't rip the heart from
Rossmoor Center's tenant mix by allowing a supermarket and
drug store to be included in the Old Ranch Towne Center, if
the City is going to give away the store to rezone additional
retail uses why not get additional sales tax revenue rather
than diluting what the City already has, if one does not
believe him that a supermarket is needed to anchor a modern
community center perhaps tonight someone will ask that of the
developer or Mr. Dan Glasman of Kitchell Development Company,
if he can deliver his project to the City without a
supermarket and drug store, if he says no, then how can the
City expect himself to revitalize Rossmoor Center without
those same tenants which are the mainstay of every community
center. He recalled that Councilman Boyd asked the Lowes
representative last week if they would locate in this area by
themselves, he commented that Lowes is a destination tenant
which means that they do not need other tenants to draw
customers to it, to which Mr. Gibbons said Lowes would be an
improvement to the City, you can have such a use without
requiring a supermarket and a drugstore, however the City
would want to insist on an agreement that if they come they
will stay open for business and not close or move out of the
City, in todays retail big box centers stores do not want to
sign go-dark or operating covenant provisions that requires
them to remain open in your Center, yet if another City wants
to recruit them, if the economy changes, or if a corporate
merger dictates, they will have to remain and not close their
store, however Lowes is also opening a store in the Long
Beach Town Center which is a true destination center located
not more than five miles from here, so which store would one
think they might close first if circumstances required, the
City might find itself giving them back sales tax revenues
just to keep them from moving. While the City weighs the
pros and cons of Bixby's residential versus commercial
projects which will dramatically influence the future of the
City's quality of life and tax revenue stability, Mr. Gibbons
said he alludes to the mixed use plan as a stable, government
backed bond t9 the community with predictable results for
Bixby's land disposition as well as Rossmoor Center, the
commercial plan being a volatile stock influenced by many
unknowns, one that may perform or decline in value over time,
either way the Bixby Company will be the stock broker who
takes its profit up front and leaves the City with the high
hopes for its performance projections, therefore there is a
cost, all of the freebies that are being thrown out, there is
a cost to Rossmoor Center for this, asking that Rossmoor
Center not be left vulnerable to the out of town corporate
raiders who really aren't in tune with the local community
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desires, the City can say no to the plan as it is presented,
Bixby will then be off the legal hook with those engaged in
purchase contracts and they will be free to pursue the mixed
use residential project which even the hand picked Planning
Commission has mandated is better than this project for the
City. He said if the City is intimidated by the threat of
the default plan, imagine the tremendous windfall, the
tremendous windfall Bixby will receive on its farmland on any
plan but the default plan and ask oneself if they really
wouldn't reconsider, they just can not say it so long as they
are obligated to deliver the Old Ranch Towne Center to those
sitting next to them who will purchase and develop it, to
which he said he knows, he has been on that side of the
street before. Mr. Gibbons said if the will to do this can
not be mustered, then at least reduce the size of the retail
commercial portion to eliminate the super market and the drug
store uses, the Rossmoor Center should continue on its course
without further uncertainty. Mr. Gibbons wished the Council
and the community good luck in the deliberations, and
expressed appreciation for being allowed to speak.
It was the order of the Chair, with consent of the Council,
to declare a recess at 10:53 p.m. The Council reconvened at
11:03 p.m. with Mayor Brown calling the meeting to order.
Mayor Brown noted five persons in the audience that had not
spoken, and invited them to do so for a period of three
minutes each.
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Ms. Donna McGuire, College Park East, mentioned that this is
her first time speaking to this matter, and for the record
reported hearing persons comment that the EQCB had certified
the FEIR, which she said they did not, as the certifying
document can be seen as not having her signature. As the
vice and Acting Chair of the EQCB hearings said there are a
couple things she would like considered, which someone
brought up today, one was if there is a change to the project
would there be need for review of the FEIR, and in the EQCB
minutes it does state that the FEIR would need to be redone,
modified, or relooked at, not just gone through, and as to
who would determine any significant changes it was stated
that the EQCB would be one of the boards that would decide if
it was a significant change or not, that is important because
that question was asked several times at EQCB. She said in
regards to what is being done tonight it is obvious that the
Council is not going to vote for the project and that
modifications are being looked for, it scares her a little
that there might be a vote on the project tonight, it took
three years to come up with the Hellman plan after two bad
plans, this is the second bad project that has been presented
by Bixby, she hoped that if a modified plan is being looked
for that a while will be taken to look at it, to quote Ron
Bradshaw 'you did not give me a lot of time, a very short
time to answer your questions', to which she agreed that this
is a short time to come up with a project that has long term
effects. Ms. McGuire said she would like to see the hearing
concluded, a vote for a motion to look at the project, have a
couple of meetings with the public so that they can bring
back questions after they have thought about this, this is
all new, after a week to think about this there will be a lot
more questions and suggestions, let them be a part of the
final disposition of this land, let's not rush this through,
let's take our time. Ms. Eulalee Siler, said she was a
twenty-seven year resident of College Park East, said there
have been a number of incorrect, misleading statements made
by people at various meetings, tonight the traffic engineer
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tells that the traffic is actually going to get better at
Seal Beach Boulevard and Lampson Avenue and all those
intersections, to which she would again refer to page 5-B6 of
the EIR where there are thirteen intersections listed and for
eleven of those intersections it indicates that the level of
service goes down, that is after the mitigation measures are
done, he mentioned too that the northbound on-ramp to the 405
freeway would improve, it will not, it says in the EIR that
at p.m. peak hours it is going to get worse, that is after
you mitigate the traffic with the $3 million bridge widening,
it is going to get worse, it has also been heard that the
City has failed to take into consideration that the Rossmoor
Center has the ability to add one hundred thousand square
feet, that is another five to six thousand vehicle trips a
day, the engineer failed to say what is going to happen at
St. Cloud and the Boulevard, the level of service is going to
go from C to D, it is going to get worse, and there is no
mitigation that can be done at that intersection, most people
don't know that at that intersection in the course of a
twenty-four hour period there are thirty-nine thousand cars,
people guess five or ten thousand, the project that is being
talked about will add another fourteen thousand to that
already congested intersection. Now, an alternative plan has
been offered, the alternative will probably put another
thirteen thousand five hundred vehicle trips on that same
highway, the traffic has not been improved one bit, she
claimed that the single biggest problem with the plan and the
alternative is the traffic and it is being disregarded, the
problem has not been addressed, that is her concern. Ms.
Siler said the problem with the plan is the twenty-three
acres of commercial, if the twenty-three acres of commercial
were taken away that would take away ninety-nine percent of
the traffic, that is where the traffic stems from, until you
get rid of the big box commercial you will not be able to get
rid of the traffic. Mr. Harold Norton, College Park East,
made reference to the comment of the General last week that
the development along Lampson Boulevard would not interfere
with flight operations, but this plan would place high
density facilities directly under the flight path, to which
he asked staff if the City could be held partially
responsible for an aircraft accident when it is known to be
in an area under the flight path. The response of legal
counsel was no, there is statutory immunity for any type of
liability that may arise from the issuance of permits. Mr.
Norton said this also closes the last of the open space with
this high density, and from his experience, stated that
College Park and even Leisure World could expect additional
traffic over their facilities if they close the open space
used now. Mr. Joe Siler, College Park East, said he just
wanted to point out for the Council that what Mr. Bradshaw
described this evening is the mixed use plan, the mixed use
plan down to the iota with one exception, it has bike paths,
greenbelts, community center in fee simple, $750,000 to get
it started as a community center, all of those items were in
the mixed use plan, the same area and uses occur on the south
side of Lampson, and there are some homes at the top where
the church formerly was, only one difference, it has twenty-
five acres of commercial, not ninety-eight golf course homes,
to which he asked all if anyone thinks that twenty-five acres
of commercial in that neighborhood is better for them than
ninety-eight golf course homes, to that he said he found it
incredible that there even has to be that discussion, that is
the only difference, there is the mixed use plan but without
ninety-eight golf course homes. Council, this evening,
suggested that as long as there is lessened or reduced
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impacts that one can go from one plan to another without
having a new EIR, to that he said evidently there is not too
much difficulty substituting seventy-five homes for a church.
Mr. Siler asked the Council to consider another modification,
ninety-eight golf course homes rather than twenty-five acres
of commercial, the benefits of ninety-eight golf course homes
to them are personal and very substantial, a total of three
thousand signatures have been seen saying they don't want
this plan, he would like to think that that would impress the
Council, also pointed out that if one lives next to $700,000
golf course homes the value of your home goes up, College
Park East and Rossmoor homes will go up a little bit because
it is now a more exclusive area, if you are in a commercial
area the value of your home goes down a little bit, small
increments, maybe an increase or decrease of two or three
percent, perhaps a five percent swing, an example, if you
live in a $300,000 home and there is a five percent swing in
its value that is $15,000, to that he suggested that everyone
who lives in the area has a stake in terms of something like
$15,000 in home value, that is something that should be taken
into account. He urged the developer to get together with
Council and find the most expeditious way to get the mixed
use plan, the ninety-eight golf course homes, back on the
table as a modification. Mr. Matt Stein, Rossmoor, noted the
agreement of the developer to include seventy-five homes, the
tennis club and drainage contribution for College park, yet
there is still the big box center and suggested that some
alternatives be looked at for it. He spoke favorably of the
comments of Ms. McGuire, stated that the people however do
not support the big box center, the people of his area would
like to add whatever they can to this process, that is what
they are here for, the Council would be encouraged to look at
some form of a moratorium where people can sit down and work
out a plan rather than be here and watch a plan degenerate as
was happening this evening. Mayor Brown declared the public
testimony portion of the public hearing closed at this time,
while allowing questions of and comments by the consultants.
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Councilman Yost said his questions relate to the air station
and the Airport Land Use Commission, the letter from them,
and asked what is the decision making body that governs what
land uses are appropriate in and around.air stations. Ms.
Andi Culbertson responded that the primary body in this State
for making that primary determination is the Airport Land Use
Commission, to which Councilman Yost asked if they have
rendered an opinion on this particular project on this
particular site, to that Ms. Culbertson advised that they
have, stating that the commercial Center project is
consistent with their land use plan which is called the
Airport Environs Land Use Plan. Councilman Yost asked if
there had been reference made to any of the other plans, such
as the former mixed use plan, to which Ms. Culbertson
reported the ALUC had made reference to Alternative E of the
EIR which at that time was one hundred twenty-five
residential units and they indicated support for that, they
also acknowledged but did not take an action on the fact that
they had also supported in the past, as a body, the golf
course, mixed use residential plan with the ninety-eight
homes but they took no action at the meetings they had
attended in September, that was not before them, that being
Alternative A. Councilman Yost confirmed that Ms. Culbertson
is a pilot, that she understands how airports work, and asked
for confirmation that the Airport Land Use Commission did
make a comment that commercial was more appropriate than
residential, to which Ms. Culbertson confirmed that the ALUC
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did support the commercial over the residential use, feeling
that it was a superior use next to the boundary of an
airport, the stated reason of the ALUC was compatibility, to
which she said possibly there could be degrees of
compatibility, perhaps more than one manifestational project
might be compatible, however one might be more compatible
than another, it is believed the ALUC felt that the
commercial land use was more compatible in this particular
location where the Center is than the residential would be.
Councilman Yost asked if Ms. Culbertson was aware of an
airfield going out of business or being pushed out of
business as a result of encroachment of development, and if
so how has that taken place in other areas. Ms. Culbertson
responded that in Orange County she personally witnessed the
San Juan Capistrano and Meadowlark airfields having to shut
down due to the proximity of development and because of noise
complaints, not even significant noise particularly, just
noise complaints, the military bases are closed differently
and under the Base Realignment and Closure Act. Councilman
Yost asked if encroachment is the type of development that
causes that or is one type of development more likely to
cause closing than another, to that Ms. Culbertson advised
that is difficult to answer because of obstruction clearance
and whatnot, clarifying that she was speaking of civilian
airports, they are typically regulated by a local agency,
like this City they have to listen to citizens when they come
to complain about noise. Councilmember Campbell said at the
Airport Land Use Commission when Bixby got its approval for
the commercial project they then requested approvals for
residential in case the City Council decided they wanted
that, the Chair then asked 'why on earth would you want that,
that was an awful development.' Councilmember Campbell said
she sits on the Airport Land Use Commission, to a question of
Councilman Yost responded that she did not sit in on the
meeting whereupon that ruling came down, that Marilyn Poe,
the alternate attended that meeting, thereafter she was
briefed by her via telephone. Councilmember Campbell said
three years ago when the mixed use plan was before the ALUC
there were two commissioners who abstained from voting for
the reasons that with a vote to approve the plan it would be
back in a few years shutting the airbase down. She said for
anyone who thinks that people don't complain about noise,
take a look at what is going on in South County with El Toro,
the nearest homes at the end of the runway is five miles yet
the people are up in arms, there was a recent letter in the
paper with someone talking about planes flying over their
heads when the corridor has no home break, there is a
fourteen thousand acre buffer around that airbase and people
are complaining, so, this development, the Bixby property is
less than fifteen hundred feet from the end of the runway, if
one thinks that people are not going to complain, they will,
people in College Park East complain and they are not even
under the runway, if anybody thinks that they are going to
put in homes so close and nobody is going to complain, guess
again, they will, especially when the C-5's taking off.
Councilman Boyd said he was a little uncomfortable comparing
the Armed Forces Reserve Center at Los Alamitos to El Toro,
the reason being, and it is known, that he is a pro-airport
advocate, the reason it is different is that El Toro is
changing the designation of use from a military installation
to a commercial airport', albeit if you believe the South
County people it is a giant airport, but it is not that giant
of an airport, thus he was uncomfortable with saying we
should compare the two and should compare the land uses, his
belief is that they are different land uses, he has spoken in
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favor of and in opposition to some things relating to
different land uses surrounding an airport and residential
component, but his feeling is that the Airport Land Use
Commission, a County Commission, Patty sits on it as a
representative of City Council along with other members that
are appointed by the Board of Supervisors, a County
Commission designed to determine land uses around airports,
specifically civilian airports and cargo airports, not
military installations. He stated that he was not defending
anything to say that he agrees that houses should be put
there, rather, it needs to be made certain that the City
designates, identifies, and explains to everyone listening at
home and in the audience what the purpose of the Airport Land
Use Commission is and what relation the AICUZ and everything
has to this project. To Ms. Culbertson, Councilman Yost
again asked hqw many EIR's she has done, to which she
responded she has lost count, something over two hundred, two
hundred fifty, to that Councilman Yost asked how many of
those were in the vicinity of airports, to which Ms.
Culbertson said maybe forty or fifty, there are a lot of
airports in Southern California, and to that Councilman Yost
asked if one type of development is more likely to cause the
premature closure at the AFRC. Ms. Culbertson said she
wanted to answer the question yet wished to preface it with
the fact that there is a very specific procedure to close a
military base compared to a civilian base, it is not
something over which you the City or the Airport Land Use
Commission have any control, it goes through Congress and the
President, and typically because military bases are not under
local control they are insulated to a particular degree from
pressure on closure, however numerous complaints put pressure
on the airbase and the federal elected representatives to
close an airbase, El Toro had a lot of complaints, she was
aware that it was not comparable and she agreed with that,
but El Toro had a lot of complaints as a military airbase and
they were from residential albeit there was a large buffer
around it, therefor residential seems to provide the
opportunity for a greater number of complaints against an
airbase than would occur if it were a commercial use.
Councilman Yost said in terms of Ms. Culbertson's general
feeling about the whole area, the big negative impact would
be for the AFRC to go away, would it not as an EIR
consultant. Ms. Culbertson responded that when this EIR was
prepared if the AFRC had been on the Base Realignment and
Closure list for closure or realignment they would have had
to undertake a very comprehensive cumulative impact study
forecasting what the base might turn into and the traffic,
water, drainage, all the impact scenarios taken in
combination with this project, and what would happen to the
area. To Councilman Yost's question as to whether AFRC has
ever been on the Base Closure list, Ms. Culbertson said
recollection is that there was a 1993 and 1995 closure list
and it is believed that all bases were looked at, however,
Los Alamitos has an independent utility and disaster support
area, therefore was not closed, also a National Guard Center,
AFRC was looked at, surveyed, it was not on a list,
Councilman Boyd added that the reason it was surveyed is
because it was converted from a full time military to a
reserve function. Councilman Yost asked if, in the opinion
of Ms. Culbertson, given the potential land uses, the
testimony of the AICUZ study and the testimony from the
Airport Land Use Commission, that commercial is a far more
preferable use for that particular land. Ms. Culbertson
stated she thought it could be said that the Airport Land Use
Commission has been very consistent in that regard, from her
11-17-98
discussions with staff they welcomed the commercial land use,
for the reasons that their aim is to protect airports,
military or civilian. councilman Yost said should a city
decide to not heed the advice of the ALUC would they do so at
their own peril, to which Ms. Culbertson suggested that the
City Attorney could explain the degree of peril that might
exist, but she could tell the City that from the State
Aeronautics Act if the Airport Land Use Commission had
recommended a denial of the project it would then take
four/fifths of a Council to vote for it and override the ALUC
decision. with regard to the comments and mention of the
word 'peril', Councilman Boyd inquired as to the exposure to
any condition would there be should there be approval of this
project or a residential project regardless of what project
or component goes into that development area, is there a
potential threat of litigation from any existing or future
occupants of that area. The City Attorney responded that
there is always a threat that someone may sue, there are
statutory immunities for the issuance of permits in the
Government Code, it is an absolute immunity whereby you can
be sued but there is no liability just for issuing permits.
Councilman Yost made reference to the former crash zones that
are on part of this property, requesting that there be some
explanation as to how they were removed and whether they
might have any significance as to what might potentially be
built there, what types of aircraft are being used at the
AFRC and whether that is an issue or not. Ms. Culbertson
clarified that reference to the property was meant as the
project site, and explained that there are no crash zones on
the project property nor have there been for quite a long
time, there is no need for them, the crash zones for both
runways are what are called the clear zones and are totally
contained within the boundaries of the airbase as they have
been for some time, as to the type of aircraft that flies out
of AFRC she had testified at the last meeting, the C-5, about
nineteen departures in 1996, twelve in 1997, Air Force One
flies in and out once or twice a year, the C-5's are not
heavily loaded when they take off because they are doing
cargo transport of lightweight, but very bulky and ungainly
material, and as General Brandt was heard to testified they
,can perform the left hand turn out, it is departure control
for an arrival at runway 30 in Long Beach that they hold them
straight out. with regard to the clear zones, Councilmember
Campbell stated that the federal government initiated
condemnation proceedings in March or April of 1960, then in
September, 1961 the federal government signed twenty-five
year leases retroactive to 1960, three weeks after the
federal government signed the leases they revested the land
back to Bixby saying they no longer needed it, why they
signed the lease she did not know, the lease expired in 1985,
in 1993 the National Guard requested to use Air Force
criteria in determining a clear zone, Air Force criteria
states that if you have less than ten jets or twenty-five
propeller driven aircraft on the average busy day an
exemption from the off-base clear zone can be requested,
there was some controversy over how they met those numbers
given that the current Wiley research study shows that they
had seven thousand one hundred thirty-nine flights on three
hundred four busy days which comes out to 23.5 propeller
driven aircraft, that is with forty-four thousand yearly
flight operations, in 1993 when they received their exemption
they had fifty-five thousand flights, therefore it is
questionable if they qualified. Ms. Culbertson clarified
that the criteria is per runway, per runway is the Air Force
instructions. Councilman Yost noted that with the proposed
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residential much smaller than in alternative E shown in the
EIR, going from one hundred twenty-five down to seventy-five
and moving much further north, asked if it was felt that
poses the same problem as the former mixed use plan, the
response of Ms. Culbertson was no, explaining that that is
why the City has specifically asked the Airport Land Use
Commission to comment on alternative E, that because they
were mindful of the residential component that was in
alternative E and they wanted to be certain the ALUC would
comment on that aspect as well, they had no difficulty with
that aspect in that it is even further constrained and
reduced. Ms. Culbertson said it is to be remembered that for
the residential uses as well as the assisted living, etc.
uses there are notifications that advises persons that they
are living in the vicinity of an airport and that they will
be subject to the sight and sound and vibration of airplanes
and things like that, that an automatic mitigation measure.
In terms of the Environmental Impact Report meeting the terms
of CEQA with regard to changing the institutional church to
residential, inquiry was if it is felt it adequately meets
that, to which Ms. Culbertson responded in the affirmative,
stating they had performed a specific analysis when the City
advised that they were thinking about such refinement, in her
opinion this is felt to be a refinement of alternative E, the
ideas that came forth tonight, a reduction refinement, they
examined the EIR and asked the traffic engineers to examine
the project and determine if there was anything that did not
jump out at Culbertson that might jump out at them in terms
of traffic engineering, signalization, access points, any
geometrics for the roadways, etc. and all concluded
completely that there were no new or more severe
environmental impacts as a result of this arrangement of the
project and therefore under State law the EIR would not need
recirculation. Councilman Yost said that would hold true
with moving the development north so that all of that tract
stays north, to which Ms. Culbertson concurred, stating that
is basically a reduction in the land area at a particular
location, ending up with less land urbanly developed, with
Councilman Yost concluding it is like a shrinking of the
development encroaching into the C-2 zone adjacent to the
Rossmoor Highlands, it could presently be any C-2 use and now
it would be residential like the property to the north.
Councilman Boyd made reference to the alternative projects,
specifically page 7-2 of EIR Volume I, the table that
outlines the different alternatives, A through J, to the
project, his understanding is that the Council has the
ability to substitute any project or component of those
projects, mix and match, whatever works someplace, that does
not intensify use, and that would therefore not require the
City to recirculate the EIR. Ms. Culbertson said the aim of
an EIR after being briefed on the environmental impacts and
the mitigation measures available is to attempt to reduce
impacts or eliminate them, and to the extent that you do that
within the boundaries of an alternative, you adopt a project
alternative, to that Councilman Boyd cited as an example
removal of the institutional use of a church and replacing it
with a residential option of alternative E, to which Ms.
Culbertson concurred and noted also that there were even
further modifications to alternative E which was to reduce
the land area devoted to development and things of that
nature that are fairly obvious, and to that Councilman Boyd
concluded that the purpose of the alternatives is to help the
Council mitigate things of concern. Ms. Culbertson said the
alternatives are to allow enough of a palate of things to
provide ideas of possibilities that there might be and what
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the possible ramifications could be, her hesitation in
responding to the question was that there is a universe of
good ideas and she was uncertain if what Councilman Boyd had
in mind would fit or not, the architecture of an EIR allows
and encourages you to use that latitude to resolve issues.
Councilman Boyd painted a scenario whereby the Council told
Bixby they loved the project but there was fifty thousand
square feet too much of commercial, that would not affect the
EIR, no requirement for recirculation. Ms. Culbertson stated
that reductions are fairly straight forward, so long as the
use is not deintensified such that there has not been a
sufficient proportionality to the mitigation measures and you
exceed that, as was talked about at the last meeting, and
that is basically a dialogue with the applicant as to whether
or not those measures remain acceptable with the project as
changed.
I
Councilmember Campbell moved to postpone voting at this
meeting so that a meeting could be held with the applicant to
discuss some of the issues that have come up to see if
modifications can be made that would be acceptable to the
community given the ideas heard at this meeting. She stated
she would like to meet with Councilman Yost, the City
Attorney, and Mr. Bradshaw in the City Manager's conference
room. Councilman Yost seconded the motion.
Councilman Boyd spoke in support of the idea of meeting and
talking about this, some of the residents requested that this
not be rushed into, his concern is that people have met and
talked for years, and although he did not want to take away
anything that Councilmember Campbell wants, this is an open
forum, suggesting that the talk be now, let Mr. Bradshaw talk
about what alternatives are available, let him respond to
comments and suggestions, in the end the Council will have a
direction and better guidance, and the community will have a
better idea of what is being looked at. Councilman Yost
offered that if specifics are being looked at in terms of a
project, asked if that falls under the Brown Act in terms of
negotiations that can be considered in a closed session. The
City Attorney explained that in that the public hearing has
been held there is no longer a problem having a subcommittee
meet with the applicant based on the comments there were
received at the hearing, yet advised that can not be done in
closed session. Councilman Yost asked if the subcommittee
would meet in open session, to which the City Attorney
advised that it would not, it would not be a meeting of the
Council, the Council has the power to appoint ad hoc
committees, they can meet and it is not considered to be a
public meeting under the terms of the Brown Act.
Councilmember Campbell said in addition to the ideas put
forth at this meeting, people will go home and think of
others, she would like to give them the opportunity to call
their Council representative with them in a couple of days,
and then hold the meeting as soon as possible.
I
Councilman Doane noted that he left the Council two and a
half years ago because of the lack of decisions on Bixby, the
mixed use plan was killed, since then the City has done
nothing more than to continue to drag its feet, the Council,
the people, the experts are here, the facts are here,
suggested that the discussion continue, it has been postponed
far too long, that it should continue in public, no private
sessions, and moved same as a substitute motion to include
the introduction of the Ordinances and Resolutions before the
Council. Mayor Brown seconded the substitute motion,
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explaining that this is to introduce the ordinances and zone
changes with the modifications that have been talked about,
then come back next meeting for second readings and take
action on the EIR Resolution. As a point of clarification,
the City Attorney advised that the Council must act on the
substitute motion first.
I
Councilman Yost deemed this to be a difficult decision,
suggesting that there still may be things that the City could
and should realize from this project, he would hate to miss
the opportunity to do so, would not like any action of the
Council to hinder the process, would like to encourage the
process as he is in favor of getting things done and moving
forward, but would like to make sure that the best deal
possible is obtained for the City and the residents of
Rossmoor as well. Mayor Brown noted that there has been
discussion of the cut-through traffic, the eighty percent
eucalyptus trees, no development south of St. Cloud, to which
he asked what more is wanted or what more is expected that
the developer will accept, these things have been negotiated
one time or another, here and there, and finally there is
agreement that has about everything that you could possibly
ask of them outside of four roadways and two sidewalks, there
is about everything that has been asked for, they have leaned
over backwards to provide it, and it is his feeling that
there is need to move ahead and approve the project.
Councilmember Campbell said she still had questions,
modifications have come up tonight and she is just asking for
another week to sit down and go over this as there were some
good ideas.
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Councilman Boyd moved an amendment to the substitute motion
that Development Area A, the twenty-five acres of commercial
located north of St. Cloud be substituted with a single
family component of ninety-eight single family units. As the
maker of the substitute motion, Councilman Doane accepted the
amendment to the original substitute motion. The Mayor
requested clarification that for all practical purposes
should the proposed project be voted down, a significant
change, the developer would have to come back with a new
proposal. The City Attorney offered that there is confusion
about what was called the previous mixed use plan, a speaker
stated that the previous mixed use plan had been analyzed by
this EIR,. the only difference is apparently this motion which
is ninety-eight units instead of the commercial portion north
of Lampson, but that was not the mixed use plan that was
presented to the Council in 1995. He advised that the
Council could act on the motion of Councilman Boyd however
clarified that is not the mixed use plan that has been known
as the mixed use plan, the motion substitutes residential
instead of commercial on Parcel A. It was verified that
Councilman Doane had seconded the amendment to the substitute
motion. The Mayor sought clarification that this would be a
substitution of ninety-eight homes plus the seventy-five at
the church site, a total of one hundred seventy-three homes.
Councilman Boyd confirmed that the ninety-eight homes is a
substitution of one component of the project. Councilman
Yost deemed the motion to be inappropriate for a number of
reasons, as heard from the EIR consultant, first of all
traffic, asked when is the traffic worse now, in the mornings
when you travel to school, he is impacted by that, he travels
that road twice a day, with a hundred and twenty homes when
does one think they are going to be on the road, morning and
evening, also said he did his own survey in College Park
East, everyone was complaining about space in school and said
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if the City is going to do this, approve the project, build
another school as well, too, Seal Beach Boulevard along the
site, agreeing with Mr. Anderson, is a commercial street, and
that is what this site is, it is thought it can be improved
and made better. He continued that the Airport Land Use
Commission, that guides what land uses are appropriate around
airports says residential is a bad idea, and for this Council
to do something against the will of that governing body would
be doing something at the City's own peril, from the City's
own consultant, the residential use is more likely to cause a
premature closure of the air station, that is the big
negative impact of the entire area. Also, he has to pay the
bills of the City and with the financial analysis of
residential in the long term for the City it does not pencil
out, it is a net loser for the City, of all the cities in
Orange County Seal Beach ranks thirtieth out of thirty-one in
commercial tax revenue, as to Hellman they still have
property that can be slated for low to moderate income
housing, the only city in Orange County that is below Seal
Beach in sales tax is Villa Park and they have a 7-11 and a
gas station, this City has to look to long term financial
viability, what is going to be left to the children.
Councilman Yost said he felt the residential substitution was
a bad idea. For the purpose of clarification, the City
Attorney noted that at the last meeting there was talk about
the previous mixed use plan, the previous mixed use plan had
uses south of Lampson that were totally different than the
uses of the present plan, also different from the uses
proposed in Alternative A, the uses of Alternative A are the
same uses shown in the present plan, the previous mixed use
plan had restaurants in that area, a large hotel, and
possibly a commercial building. Mayor Brown said he felt it
was fairly clear that the only thing being substituted is the
commercial area with golf course homes, his concern is that
the number of homes may be more than he could support, and
his understanding is that the rest of the plan stays the
same. The Attorney did mention that there had been testimony
at this meeting from the EIR consultant that they further
analyzed Alternative Project E yet they had not done the same
analysis with Alternative A, therefore if action is taken
tonight there will be need to get information from the EIR
consultant as to what impacts may arise. At the request of
the Mayor, Councilman Boyd stated there has been a lot of
talk about the mixed use plan, this is not the previous mixed
use plan as counsel just informed, this is substituting
ninety-eight single family golf course homes for the
commercial project, in addition, in the institutional area
the substitution has already been made for the church with
seventy-five homes, all of this would be contingent upon the
developer's wishes if they chose to do that. The Council can
talk about this, consider combining the two projects and do a
hundred fifty houses instead of a hundred seventy-three,
there are all of these options, this is what needs to happen,
this is a productive environment that it is going to happen
in, suggested this be talked about now, if it is not liked,
as Councilman Yost indicated, then vote it down, if it is
liked then vote it up, nonetheless let's talk about it, there
have been years and years of fighting about this, the Bixby
Ranch Company wants one thing, three votes for a project that
is profitable for them and good for the City, that is what
the Council is here to do, if it is not finished tonight then
it will need to be continued to next Monday. Councilmember
Campbell stated she had made the earlier motion to get this
back to the table to sit down and come up with some
modifications that would be palatable to everybody, also that
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she did not get closure on any of the comments she had made
to Mr. Bradshaw tonight regarding roadway improvements,
stating she wants land dedicated for the freeway on and off
ramps and money for the Lampson curve, those being her two
big issues, said she is also concerned about over-development
at the corner, she did not feel that the uses of a hotel and
senior care facility are appropriate because they are subject
to excessive noise and air pollution, as she mentioned
earlier a nursery or something similar would be a better land
use, that corner can not take a lot of development, that was
a big complaint, if it is now thought to substitute housing
then the demand on that corner is going to be to produce
money for the City, that corner can't take development, the
intersection needs to be kept open or, as said, people are
never going to be able to get in and out of College Park
East, and any revenue from College Park East to the Rossmoor
Center can be kissed goodby because people go to shop on
Valley View, that because Seal Beach Boulevard is so awful
people can not get up and down that street. She said to get
this far in the process and then switch to this motion is
ludicrous. Councilman Boyd posed a question to Mr. Gibbons,
stating he had alluded that if the mixed use plan were to be
brought back Rossmoor Center was positioned three years ago
to begin a redevelopment process, then what is the status of
that now. From the audience, and in part, Mr. Gibbons said
Rossmoor is a living component to this, there are three to
four architectural studies that cover the Rossmoor plans,
that he stood by his statements at this meeting, and claimed
that no one has ever come to talk with him. Councilman Yost
said the City has been waiting a long time for Rossmoor
Center to upgrade yet nothing has been seen even starting in
that direction, and as a former member of the Planning
Commission said he knows something about the leases and their
uncertain future, even the tenants don't know what the long
term future might be, to him the only thing that can be
thought of that would get Rossmoor Center to upgrade would be
to force it to compete, otherwise all is uncertain.
Councilman Boyd stated he had some concerns, wanted to get
the issues out, these things need to be talked about. He
asked Mr. Bradshaw how long this has been dealt with,
certainly far too long for he and the Board of Directors of
the Bixby Ranch Company, that personally he was tired of this
being a divisive issue in the community, stated to those
present that this is a good City Council, there have been
good City Council's before, said this is democracy in action,
the people wanted to see this, they wanted it in the open,
the Council is doing it, they want to deal with this, the
problem he sees is that you asked the Council to look at long
range plans, the Council wants some answers, they are not
saying that every decision that is made tonight is going to
be based on what Mr. Gibbons or Mr. Bradshaw says they
possibly could or could not do, the Council wants input from
everybody, it is trying to get that. He mentioned that Mr.
Gibbons made a point and said that the City is not
considering what is going to be the impact of the traffic
from Rossmoor Center if they develop, the concern to him then
is if twenty-five acres of commercial development is built
now then what is the impact of traffic going to be if and
when Rossmoor Center redevelops, which is forty acres of
commercial, to him personally he would like to see some
places where he could go to shop rather than having to go to
Newport Beach or South Coast Plaza, it would be nice to be
able to buy something in this City. Councilman Boyd said he
and the other members of the Council are on everyone's side,
for members of the audience to condemn the Council is not
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right, and invited the public to work with the Council, he
did not have the answer as to what will make this a better
project, if a commercial project is wanted, then his question
to Bixby would be how much square footage of that commercial
can be reduced and how much is acceptable to the community,
the Council has heard from Rossmoor and Los Alamitos, as to
Los Alamitos he said he has discounted their concerns
somewhat as far as what the City has said because they want
the same retail dollar that Seal Beach is looking for, it is
a predatory environment.
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Mayor Brown called for the question on the amendment of the
substitute motion to change the commercial use to add ninety-
eight homes for a total of one hundred seventy-three homes.
Members of the Council requested comment from Mr. Bradshaw
with regard to what impact this change would have on their
plans. Councilman Yost noted that a speaker had reported
that Bixby would realize almost twice as much from mixed use
as they would from commercial, therefore if one wants to add
more money to the developer's pocket, go for it. Councilman
Boyd noted that even tonight Mr. Bradshaw had offered to
given another million dollars, the City is still extracting
from them, to him it is an inordinate amount and if he were
the developer would be a bit concerned, said he is aware of
what the City needs, there are a significant amount of
unfunded liabilities, there are sidewalks that need repair,
there is infrastructure that is aged, and not just in Old
Town Seal Beach where cobblestone streets and gas lamps are
desired, it is the citizens City, in their areas, in the
College Parks, and he would like to see some things done that
could possibly be done tonight. Councilman Yost agreed but
said that is done through long term financial viability of
the City by producing a plan with long term revenue streams,
not a short term amount of development fees that are here and
gone. Councilman Doane suggested looking at long term, the
Rossmoor Shopping Center that has made indications that they
are going to upgrade, what is being done by the proposal
tonight is generating more customers, generating more people
to pay utility users tax, generating revenue by having more
people to take part in the things that raise money. The
Mayor mentioned that the likelihood of the utility users tax
coming down is not great, as did other Council members.
Councilmember Campbell said she found it difficult to believe
that another four hundred residents would make a difference
in the Rossmoor Center, as there are now five thousand
residents in College Park East and ten thousand in Rossmoor,
another twelve thousand in Los Alamitos, another four hundred
is not going to turn the Center around.
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Mayor Brown again called for the question, clarifying that
the motion was to substitute ninety-eight homes for the
commercial area of the plan in addition to the seventy-five
already included, for a total of one hundred seventy-three
homes.
AYES:
NOES:
Boyd, Doane
Brown, Campbell, Yost
I
Motion failed
Councilman Yost moved a substitute motion to approve the
commercial plan in concept subject to meetings with Mr.
Bradshaw and a sub-committee of the Council to take into
account concerns from neighboring residents to develop a plan
that may be acceptable to the community and the City Council
as a whole. Mayor Brown said he has dealt with the Bixby
issue for the past six years, met with former Councilman
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Laszlo and his committee, the committee of College Park
residents, has met with Councilmember Campbell two or three
times to talk about the whole thing, including commercial,
meetings after meetings with Bixby, every plan that comes up
is agreed to, proposals have been made as to what the City
wanted, Bixby has agreed to all of them, the City has backed
off, and said he personally felt that about as much as can be
extracted from the developer has been done, this should be
acted upon up or down, either have the commercial plan as is
being modified or go back to the fall-back plan, or whatever,
stating he felt it was time to make a decision.
Councilmember Campbell again argued for one more week to
discuss the modifications and suggestions that came forth
from this meeting, also, said again that she did not get
closure on the on- and off- ramps, reduction of development
on the corner site, or monies for the Lampson curve.
Councilman Yost responded that he believed that there has
been agreement that space would be left for the potential
widening of the on- and off- ramps. There was no second to
the motion of Councilman Yost. Councilman Boyd requested
further discussion of the commercial, that being the greatest
cause for opposition from Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, and
District Four, 285,000 square feet of commercial, 299,000 the
maximum building area under the plan.
Mayor Brown suggested going back to the initial motion,
approval of the zone changes, substitute seventy-five units
of residential for the church area, make certain that all of
the various items that have been discussed are included, and
talk with Bixby during the week for any acceptable changes.
It was confirmed that the intent was to approve the first
reading of the zone changes tonight however not to approve
any specific square footage of commercial at this time, that
subject to negotiations with Bixby, to be before the Council
at the next meeting. Comment was made that if this is not
changed or resolved by the next meeting this issue will not
be delayed further. The City Attorney confirmed that the
first reading could be held on the zone changes, that the
northerly portion could be changed to residential, however
with respect to commercial the square footage would be
contained in the ordinance yet is subject to change, and
confirmed that the Council, at the next meeting, could
incorporate a reduction of the commercial area if that were
to be agreed upon. To a question from Mayor Brown, the City
Attorney confirmed that the entire Council could not meet
with Bixby Ranch unless the intent is to adjourn this meeting
until another date. Council comments continued with regard
to which members of the Council would negotiate with Bixby.
Councilmember Boyd pointed out that the discussion is to have
two members of the Council serve as an ad hoc committee for
seven days to negotiate changes into this project, a concern
with that is that a suggestion was made that the whole
Council do that in public forum, to which he said that is
what is being done right now, and posed the question to Mr.
Bradshaw if he would like two members of the Council sit down
and discuss the project further. Mayor Brown prefaced a
response of yes with the fact that if they negotiation and
the Council turns the project down anyway, as has been done
at least ten times, asked what is the point. Mr. Bradshaw
acknowledged that the discussion during this meeting has been
interesting. He pointed out that the plan before the Council
is the plan and application that Bixby has worked on with the
City, based on the MOU, for sixteen months, to which he said
to change the five and a half acre landscaped area and the
whole configuration and uses at the corner of Lampson and
11-17-98
Seal Beach Boulevard is just not reasonable, those uses have
not changed, this was a substitution for the Marriott Care
Facility from the tennis club site, that is what precipitated
this plan, and mentioned that the exactions that the City has
taken in the sixteen months, particularly in the last twenty-
four hours, have been extraordinary to say the least, and to
say that now another twenty percent is going to be cut from
the commercial plan does not seem that it would take a weeks
time to discuss, it just does not work for the City nor does
it work for Bixby Ranch company, the City's part of the
bargain today is much greater than Bixby's, and offered to
develop a matrix that shows that. Mr. Bradshaw said he did
not want to speak ill of their neighbor across the street at
Rossmoor, but to have them talk to Bixby about good
development and how good development works when he would be
glad to show seven centers that Bixby owns that have been
upgraded and are worked on every single day of the year,
Bixby does not consider a capital improvement doing slurry
and restriping the parking lots, so if there is credence
being given that statement, asked that it be put aside. He
suggested that Lucky's and Rite Aid be asked that if they had
a modern store if they wouldn't love to compete with somebody
across the street, they would say absolutely, he could also
tell the Council from a marketing study you are not going to
have tenants come if they do not believe that they are going
to do good business, in fact, there is a full complement of
users that would like to be on that site, and to ask Bixby to
take fifty thousand square feet out of that Center so that
the center across the street feels better about itself seems
to be asking a bit much. Mr. Bradshaw described this as a
positive project, doing all the things that has been asked
and more, and as said, in the last twenty-four hours the
Development Agreement has been modified twice, both to
upgrade it in terms of the economic benefits that come into
the City, and he would agree with Joe Siler, that this plan,
based on the exactions that have been taken, must look like
the mixed use plan with the exception of the commercial, yet
the commercial is something that the City said it would like
to have, it was studied, came up with a good plan that makes
a lot of sense, it has an economic benefit to the City, it is
going to recur from this point forward, it is not going to
decline in value, and when one talks about Fortune 500 stores
that want to be in there they do not open a store and close
it next week because there is competition up the street, they
will be there and they can be counted on, it is not certain
that can be said for some of the stores across the street,
second, third generation where there is probably no tenant
improvement dollars to even make themselves viable. Mr.
Bradshaw suggested that this issue needs resolution, he would
be glad to discuss it for a week but said he did not want to
leave this Chamber tonight with unreasonable expectations
where somebody can come back next week and think there is
going to be a major change in the project than what is seen
today. He noted that most of the comments made by the
community were addressed along the way, the cut-through
traffic, that did not fall on Council deaf ears, that has
been addressed, the church use and the over-aggressive use of
the fifteen acre site was addressed by the City, the fact
that the $750,000 that was originally offered for the tennis
club to community center improvements did not go away and was
re-exacted. If the belief is that next week Bixby is going
to come in and there is going to be a project that is fifty
percent less, and what is going to be done then is give him
the residential plan, to him at this point in time it is
important to have an orderly development, anyone who believes
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that the City will get the same benefits from a default plan
is absolutely incorrect. Mr. Bradshaw said it seems to him
that when they get through with the twenty-three acres of
commercially zoned development they are still going to have
this property, the objective of the City Council was to have
a final land use plan, and that will not be, there is not
going to be the preservation and a hold still for thirty
years on any future development on that site, that is not
going to come with the project, and to him that has not been
valued highly enough, when you talk about the loss of open
space there is going to be far more open space than could be
asked for because it is going to be developed, anybody that
can see the sod farm, by considering it open space they will
need good vision because it can not be seen beyond the fence
at this point in time which extends into the boundary of the
existing golf course. Mr. Bradshaw stated that the benefits
are numerous that come with this project, while it will not
satisfy the needs or requirements of everybody, that is no
question, as they found over the last ten years that they
could bring plan after plan to attention, they worked with
small groups, worked with large groups, there has been
sabotage of the groups, the fact of the matter is that Bixby
has always been a willing participant in this process, and
the most effective one, he would say, is the one that they
have gone through in the last year, and the reason it has
been effective is because it was coordinated by the City
Council, they had a vision for a plan, they stated it in the
MOU, that has been followed to the letter of the law, and
frankly, exceeded it by a great margin. He said it should
not be thought that if another week is waited to take action
on this plan that there is going to be some profound change
of magnitude, there is still going to be those who consider,
real or not real, that traffic has not been addressed, that
is not going to go away in seven days, the fact is that
everything that you can collaborate has been tested, the
fiscal impact study, that is not their fiscal impact study,
that was done by an independent, said he did not even know
the firm, has never used them, they came up with the report,
therefore for someone to say the report does not hold water,
talk to the City, they, not Bixby hired them, the same has to
do with the Environmental Impact Study, Bixby didn't even
know that Culbertson Adams existed until they were hired by
the City to do the report, yet he would say they did a good
job and the City received a super report, and it is believed
that if this project was put in many of the cities in Orange
County it would get a Negative Dee with a traffic study,
therefore if there is talk of all of the problems and
devaluing property in Orange County, go to Irvine and look at
how many really nice centers, larger than this, lined with
trees, that are sitting right in residential communities, is
there just one of them, no, in many cases there are two or
three that are clustered in areas, and frankly that is good
for commercial because it does concentrate it, which has an
impact on traffic because people tend to not just go to one
place and go home, they go there to take in the shopping.
Mr. Bradshaw said whatever the resolution is tonight,
requested that there be a positive action and move forward,
but that it not be done with unreasonable expectations that
you are going to come back next week and find a completely
different project because it is not believed that will
happen. Mayor Brown offered that he has dealt with the Bixby
people for the last five and a half years, has sat in on
almost every plan presented, some he liked better than
others, but when it got to City Council in every case it got
voted down by three to two because there were so many things
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11-17-98
that the Council felt they needed to have for this project or
that project, this is a very divided City, it was impossible
to get three votes for any project, and every plan was one
that was presented to Bixby, Bixby never gave the City their
plan, the City is the one that said here is what we want,
each time Bixby said okay, therefore given another week to
talk about this is just spinning wheels, everything has been
done, his opinion is to either vote it up or down.
Councilman Boyd mentioned the things that Councilmember
Campbell wanted, from what has been heard it does not appear
those things are going to come, a week can be spent taking
about them but it is not thought they will come, to which
Councilman Yost said most has been gotten. Councilman Boyd
noted his mention of a twenty percent reduction of the
commercial, to which he countered with a ten percent
reduction proposal. Mayor Brown objected, suggesting that
the project be either voted up or down. If there are first
readings, Councilman Yost asked if there would still be room
for flexibility for details. The City Attorney responded
that if there is first reading of the ordinances they can be
changed because it is not a final decision, with respect to
the zone changes, those are the ordinances, and relate to the
tennis court, the commercial south of Lampson, and the
residential component, second reading could be held and
conditions can still be placed on the subdivision map that
will be considered at the next meeting, if it is found the
conditions are more than fine tuning, second reading would
not be held and there would then be another first reading.
Councilman Boyd noted that if the documents are fine tuned to
the point the developer can not do it, then he has the
opportunity to say he can not. The City Attorney confirmed
that to be correct, in fact as provided by the MOU the
developer can back out at any time, if a project is approved
that the developer does not like they can advise that they
will not do it. The issue of an ad hoc Council committee was
dropped at this point.
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Councilman Yost moved approval of the first reading of the
ordinances. Councilman Boyd clarified that this motion
approves the zone changes, this is the first reading, the
Council will have one week to do whatever independently or
together, to which the Mayor stressed independently,
Councilman Boyd clarified further that next week there will
be a second reading and the project will either go sideways
or be approved. The City Attorney advised that there is also
a first reading of the Development Agreement, and should this
motion be approved he would review the changes that have been
agreed to. Councilman Doane seconded the motion.
AYES:
NOES:
Boyd, Brown, Doane, Yost
Campbell
Motion carried
The City Attorney read the titles of the Ordinances
introduced and having first reading as follows:
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Ordinance Number 1436 entitled "AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF
SEAL BEACH ADOPTING ZONE CHANGE 98-1 (BIXBY OLD RANCH TENNIS
CLUB SITE)", this being a change from Commercial to Public
Land Use/Recreation;
Ordinance Number 1437 entitled "AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF
SEAL BEACH ADOPTING ZONE CHANGE 9B-1 (DEVELOPMENT AREAS "A"
AND "B") AND ADOPTING THE OLD RANCH TOWNE CENTER DEVELOPMENT
PLAN OVERLAY (BIXBY OLD RANCH TOWNE CENTER)", which changes
Recreational Golf to C-2;
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11-17-98
Ordinance Number 1438 entitled "AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF
SEAL BEACH- ADOPTING ZONE CHANGE 98-1 (DEVELOPMENT AREA "C")
AND ADOPTING THE OLD RANCH TOWNE CENTER DEVELOPMENT PLAN
OVERLAY (BIXBY OLD RANCH TOWNE CENTER)", an overlay zone for
the golf course; and
Ordinance Number 1439 entitled "AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF
SEAL BEACH ADOPTING ZONE CHANGE 98-1 (DEVELOPMENT AREA "D")
AND ADOPTING THE OLD RANCH TOWNE CENTER DEVELOPMENT PLAN
OVERLAY (BIXBY OLD RANCH TOWNE CENTER)", which changes the
zoning from Commercial to Residential Medium Density.
Mayor Brown offered his understanding that the Council may
study these documents further prior to second reading and may
make changes thereto as long as they are not major changes.
The City Attorney clarified that the changes would not be to
the Ordinances, rather to the Subdivision Map, that document
not before the Council at this meeting, conditions may be
added. It was noted also that it is possible that members of
the Council could change their vote between the first and
second readings.
Doane moved, second by Brown, to approve the introduction and
first reading of Ordinances Numbered 1436, 1437, 1438, and
1439.
AYES:
NOES:
Boyd, Brown, Doane, Yost
Campbell
Motion carried
Councilmember Campbell requested to be provided with copies
of the exhibits to the Development Agreement Ordinance.
Boyd moved, second by Yost, to declare the public hearing
closed.
AYES:
NOES:
Boyd, Brown, Campbell, Doane, Yost
None Motion carried
Ordinance Number 1440 was introduced, the title of which was
read by the City Attorney entitled "AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY
OF SEAL BEACH ADOPTING A DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE
CITY OF SEAL BEACH AND BIXBY RANCH COMPANY, REGARDING THE
"BIXBY OLD RANCH TOWN CENTER DEVELOPMENT PLAN." The City
Attorney commenced a review of the changes to the Agreement
as follows:
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Section 1.3.19.1, Area D, the acreage has been changed
to 14.656, that includes 12 acres of residential, the
balance will be a park; clarified to Council that
responsibility for the park is set forth later in the
Agreement;
Section 3.1.1.1, Area D, reads that 'Area D may be
subdivided into not more than 90 parcels, of which not
more than 75 parcels shall be residential lots', and
language will be added to reflect the park of
approximately 2.5 acres; confirmed that the lot sizes
are in the area of 4,000 square feet;
Section 3.1.1.3, pointed out that the 30 year limitation
has not changed;
Section 3.1.1.4, Area B, concern had been expressed that
if the Marriott Senior Care Center did not receive
governmental approvals from other bodies, that they can
not substitute a more intensive use, language added that
'any substitute land use shall not be more intense.in
terms of traffic and air quality impacts';
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11-17-98
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Section 3.1.2.7, project Phasing, this is designed to
ensure that the commercial goes in before the
residential;
Section 3.2.5.1, Old Ranch Tennis Club, currently
reflects the sum of $1,000,000, to which the question
was posed if it was desired to designate the $750,000 to
a the tennis facility fund; Councilman Boyd said he did
not want to designate specific amounts to that fund as
it may be found that it will only take $200,000 to
retrofit the facility or a private enterprise donation
may be realized, to which Councilman Yost said he wished
to respond to the residents of College Park East that
that money is specifically for use in that area, to
which Councilman Boyd concurred; suggestion made that it
be specified for use in the College Park East area, yet
to be determined for what; conclusion that the
$1,000,000 will be used for improvements for College
Park East, including but not limited to the tennis club;
Section 3.2.5.2, Community Police Center, it was noted
that question had been raised as to what would happen if
the project is moved north, to which Mr. Bradshaw
testified that the facility would be provided just not
in the old bank building; it was confirmed that this
will be a permanent community police center rather than
the current leased space location in Rossmoor Center;
suggested also that the Cable Foundation be accommodated
as well;
Again with reference to Section 3.2.5.1 and the
$1,000,000, the City Attorney clarified that a prior
version of the Agreement gave Bixby reversionary rights,
that has been deleted, therefore if the City accepts the
dedication of the tennis club there are no strings
attached;
Section 3.2.5.3, Green Belts, language has been added
for future freeway ramp widening, it is still
approximately five acres of land, recognized that the
City will realize more land at the south portion and
less at the north, the City will be able to decide;
Section 3.2.5.3.2., this is a forty foot landscaped area
that is designed to preserve a large number of the trees
adjacent to Areas A and C, and if they have to install
any landscaping it has to be consistent with the
landscaping plan that Bixby needs to submit to the City;
Reference again to Section 3.2.5.3.1, additional
language, it identifies a strip of land adjacent to the
405 northbound off-ramp right-of-way at Seal Beach
Boulevard, a tract map showed some land that they were
not going to use, this will help somewhat;
Section 3.2.5.6, Maintenance of Landscaping, minor
clarification, if the dedication is accepted, it will be
City property and maintenance districts can be
established without the objection of Bixby;
Section 3.2.5.7, Lampson Avenue Enhancements, Subsection
1, that is the bikepath/sidewalk, the Council can use
discretion as to whether this is to be on the north or
south; Councilmember Campbell said they are already on
the north and south it is just that the north side is
very narrow, basically, they tried to carve a bikepath
out of an existing roadway; caution was raised as to the
possibility of being hit by golf balls, suggesting the
path be located on the south side; some discussion
indicated that if felt necessary something could be
worked out that would be reasonable to all concerned;
the City Attorney clarified that as written it is to be
at a location to be determined by the City;
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Section 3.2.5.7., Subsection 3, relates to enhancing the
entire south edge of the golf course with new
landscaping and new fencing: explained further that
Subsection 4 is the new catchbasins: Subsection 5 is
payment by Bixby of $35,000 for removing the block wall
located on the north side of Lampson Avenue between the
Western Education Building and Parkwood, and to improve
the landscaping of that same area: Subsection 6 provides
that Bixby shall repair the wall and improve the
landscaping to the City's satisfaction in the area
between Lampson Avenue curve and Heather: the location
of those will be made more precise: Subsection 7 is
landscaping along the new location of the driving range:
question was raised if a decision had been made as to
whether there would be a public driving range or not, a
resulting suggestion was that that be left to
Councilmember Campbell: Councilman Boyd pointed out that
this is an opportunity for people who previously could
not use the Old Ranch Country Club to now use it, also
noting that Hellman Ranch will not have a driving range,
this also offers an opportunity for a junior golf
program within the City: Councilmember Campbell said
public access to the driving range was something that
was wanted years ago, her concern though was with the
driveway: the City Attorney suggested a new Subsection 8
to provide that the location of the access to the
driving range must be to the satisfaction of the City;
suggestion was made that possibly just the cross traffic
could be eliminated; the City Attorney said if this is
not resolved the Council could delete this condition
next week without requiring a new first reading;
Section 3.2.5.8, Water Retention Basin, Bixby will
provide an additional thirteen to fifteen percent
capacity of the flood protection easement above what
would be normally required:
Section 3.2.5.9, Storm Drain, the inlet capacity will be
twenty-five percent greater than the standard set forth
in the Orange County Local Drainage Manual:
Section 3.2.5.13, Bixby will quitclaim any interest in
Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center, also offered
to sign a statement, the form of which is yet uncertain,
that is acceptable to the City, that they will not make
an offer on the property if it is ever offered to
private parties, to which he clarified that this is
something the Council requested; question was posed if
this is legally binding; the Mayor responded likely not
in perpetuity, possibly the quitclaim but not if the
property were put up for sale: the City Attorney
expressed uncertainty as to how binding this would be:
suggestion was made for a period of thirty years:
Section 4.2.4, new indemnification language, the prior
draft provided that if the City were sued as a result of
these approvals Bixby would indemnify the City and pay
the attorney fees, the language that has been added
provides that should anything occur during construction
of any portion of this project Bixby will indemnify the
City from any lawsuits or if any lawsuits arise from any
use of the property again Bixby will indemnify the City,
that is standard language used in the City's development
agreements.
*
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Boyd moved, second by Campbell, to approve the introduction
and first reading of Ordinance Number 1440 as amended.
11-17-9B / 11-23-9B
AYES:
NOES:
Boyd, Brown, Campbell, Doane, Yost
None Motion carried
CLOSED SESSION
It was the order of the Chair, with consent of the Council,
to continue the Closed Session items until the next meeting.
ADJOURNMENT
By unanimous consent, the Council adjourned the meeting until
Monday, November 23rd at 6:30 p.m. to meeting in Closed
Session. The meeting was adjourned by unanimous consent at
1:00 a.m.
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Attest:
Seal Beach, California
November 23, 199B
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The City Council of the City of Seal Beach met in regular
adjourned session at 6:32 p.m. with Mayor Brown calling the
meeting to order with the Salute to the Flag.
ROLL CALL
Present:
Mayor Brown
Councilmembers Boyd, Campbell, Doane
Absent:
Councilman Yost
Councilman Yost joined the Council in Closed Session at
approximately 6:33 p.m.
Also present: Mr. Till, City Manager
Mr. Barrow, City Attorney
Mrs. Yeo, City Clerk
APPROVAL OF AGENDA
Doane moved, second by Boyd, to approve the order of the
agenda as presented.
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AYES:
NOES:
ABSENT:
Boyd, Brown, Campbell, Doane
None
Yost
Motion carried
CLOSED SESSION
The City Attorney announced that the Council would meet in
Closed Session to discuss the four items identified on the