Brea Council to Hear Copter Controversy

A proposal to build a helipad atop a three-story bank building in Brea--a plan so controversial that it’s been an issue in two local elections and drawn crowds to a Planning Commission hearing--surfaces again tonight at a hearing before the Brea City Council.

City officials, bracing for an overflow, will open additional rooms at the Brea Civic Center to accommodate the crowd as the council considers a proposal to build a helipad on top of the Security Pacific National Bank Operations Center.

“We’ve got two rooms set up with video and loudspeakers in addition to the (council) chamber,” Development Services Director William Kelly said. “It’s an emotional issue.”

Residents fear that proposed flights from the bank operations center at 275 Valencia Avenue will be too noisy and devalue their property. More than 300 residents crowded a Planning Commission meeting May 28, when commissioners denied the permit but legally left the door open for the bank to appeal to the City Council.

Brea City Council member Sam Cooper said Security Pacific should expect a more vocal crowd than the one opposing the bank when it first made its request more than three years ago. “(The issue) is much stronger now than it was before.”

Susan Taha, a senior vice president with Security Pacific, said the bank plans to go before the council tonight with a revised proposal that calls for a maximum of five, instead of 10, flights per day from the helipad and would operate only over undeveloped land like that owned by the Union Oil Co.

City officials, however, will consider whether helicopter flights would be a problem to future residents along the proposed flight path should that land be developed.