Suit Seeks to Bar Segerstrom Plan for Costa Mesa Development

A group of Costa Mesa residents filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the city’s approval of a large commercial development planned by C.J. Segerstrom & Sons east of Harbor Boulevard and north of the San Diego Freeway.

The group, called Costa Mesa Residents for Responsible Growth, said the city failed to adequately study the environmental impact of the project, which includes two office towers that are to be 12 and 20 stories tall.

The planned construction “is likely to result in gridlocked streets and a general deterioration of the quality of life in Costa Mesa,” the Orange County Superior Court lawsuit alleged.

Segerstrom, the developer of South Coast Plaza, won city approval May 4 for the office towers, a parking structure, a child-care center and a 50,000-square-foot pavilion on a 98-acre site. The project, One South Coast Place, is to be built on land known as the Home Ranch.

Last year, the firm withdrew a plan for a 32-story office tower on the same site after strong protests from residents. The scaled-down first phase of the project, which is to house regional offices of International Business Machines Corp., was approved by the council on a 4-1 vote.

That action was based on a traffic study that used “out of date” figures and failed to assess the impact of possible future development on roads and municipal services, according to the lawsuit.

City officials failed to adequately consider alternatives with fewer “adverse impacts,” the lawsuit alleged.

A Segerstrom spokesman who had not seen the lawsuit declined comment. Costa Mesa City Atty. Thomas C. Wood was unfazed.

“We believe we thoroughly studied the impact on the environment, and we are confident our report will withstand any legal challenges,” Wood said.

The group said city approval was “arbitrary and capricious and a prejudicial abuse of discretion.” The lawsuit seeks court orders forbidding the city to issue any building permits until the entire case can be heard.

The lawsuit says that the volume of traffic at many nearby intersections is near capacity and that traffic at two unspecified locations already exceeds capacity.

The project was approved after an eight-hour City Council meeting that ended in the early-morning hours of May 5. The citizens group says residents were limited to two minutes of comment each and were unable to completely express their concerns.

The withdrawal of development plans last year marked the first major political defeat for the Segerstroms involving Costa Mesa development.

“We recognized there were serious community concerns about the impact,” said Tom Santley, director of public affairs for the development firm. The firm conducted a survey of homeowners and held more than 30 community meetings earlier this year explaining the scaled-back building proposal, Santley said.

“We feel we met the concerns of the public,” said Santley. “We think the project is very fine and will benefit the majority of citizens in Costa Mesa.”

Councilman David Wheeler, who opposed the project in May, has attacked the revised plan, claiming that it does not represent a real reduction in space from the original skyscraper proposal.