Buena Park : City Temporarily Bans Main Strip Development

The City Council has temporarily banned all new development along a strip of Beach Boulevard, the city’s main tourist corridor, and ordered city planners to begin studies on a comprehensive blueprint for future development.

The council voted unanimously to freeze development proposals until Nov. 17, said Buena Park Zoning Administrator Rick Sowder. The interim zoning ordinance affects a mile-long strip of the tourist thoroughfare between Orangethorpe and La Palma avenues, he said Friday.

Knott’s Berry Farm and the Movieland Wax Museum--the city’s primary tourist attractions--are on the boulevard, which is lined with numerous hotels and restaurants.

The freeze will allow the Planning Department time to formulate zoning guidelines that protect “the integrity of the commercial-entertainment zone,” said Mayor Pro Tem Don R. Griffin. He added that the commercial-entertainment zoning use is “not definitive enough.”

Several developers have recently asked for approval to build retail-commercial shopping centers along the strip, Sowder said. Monday’s action by the council was triggered by the planning panel’s approval of two such centers, he said.

The council’s action overturned the planning panel’s approval of the two strip-type shopping centers, which would have faced the boulevard and contained several retail shops and two franchise restaurants, Sowder said.

The city will study the area’s traffic, growth patterns and projected land uses, officials said. An outside planning firm will be retained to aid the study, they said.