Monterey Park Fails to Put End to Dispute

The City Council has rejected a recommendation that would have ended a lengthy dispute with a major Chinese developer over a $20-million shopping center and bank complex, voicing concerns over traffic problems and the mix of tenants.

City Manager Lloyd de Llamas--hoping to end a debate that has pitted members of the city’s large Chinese community against longtime Anglo and Latino residents--asked the council Monday to drop attempts to revoke a conditional use permit on the project.

De Llamas said the developer, William Yang, had allayed his fears over traffic and density problems and would give the city a quality “one-stop” shopping center at Atlantic Boulevard and Garvey Avenue, the city’s busiest intersection.

But the council did not vote on the motion. Instead it directed De Llamas to secure the names of the businesses that will occupy the center and to review the developer’s plan for decreasing traffic and congestion. In addition, council members Barry Hatch, Chris Houseman and Pat Reichenberger told De Llamas that he should continue revocation proceedings in the event negotiations with the developer break down.

Hatch, who spoke out firmly against settling the matter, said he feared the three-story shopping center would consist of small boutiques and discount stores that have dominated the city’s landscape in recent years while providing little in tax revenues.

The vast majority of these shops are owned by Asians, who now account for 40% of the city’s population, the largest such concentration in the nation.

Shop Makeup Questioned

“It looks like the biggest portion of the center will be boutiques and jewelry stores,” Hatch said. “This is what we already have in a multitude of mini-malls.”

The dispute between the city and Yang has centered on differing interpretations of what type of shops, restaurants and department stores should occupy the 91,000-square-foot retail and commercial building, which is in the final stages of construction and is more than 80% leased.

City officials contend that Yang’s representatives persuaded a cautious City Council in October, 1985, to approve the project by putting forward plans to bring in well-known tenants of the caliber of Ann Taylor and Laura Ashley clothing stores and the Seafood Broiler and Hungry Tiger restaurants.

City officials say only these “chain-type” tenants will draw a broad range of customers wanting to shop for a few hours.

Hatch, Houseman and Reichenberger, the council’s three newest members who won election last year by campaigning against development and Chinese-language commercial signs, say Yang has reneged on these promises.

They say good-faith negotiations between Yang and the city effectively were broken when the developer charged in a Times article last month that city officials were racists and were attempting to block Chinese-owned businesses from becoming tenants--a charge city officials vehemently deny.

A day after the article appeared, the council agreed to hold public hearings in late June on whether to revoke the project’s conditional use permit. Monterey Park requires the issuance of conditional use permits on all retail and commercial developments with nine or more tenants.

Square Footage Cited

Yang, a wealthy textile manufacturer in Taiwan before immigrating to the United States in 1977, said revocation of the conditional use permit would imperil the financial well-being of his project, forcing him to scale back the number of tenants from 59 to nine. This would make it virtually impossible to fill the complex because each tenant would have to be large enough to occupy an average of 10,000 square feet, he said.

Yang’s attorney, Doug Ring, argues that city officials--motivated by a racist desire to erase Monterey Park’s image as the nation’s first suburban Chinatown--do not have the legal right to dictate what type of tenant will occupy the center.

Ring says the developer never promised that it could obtain commitments from any particular tenant. To support that contention, he points to transcripts of an Oct. 14, 1985, public hearing at which the City Council approved the conditional use permit. During that hearing, according to official city transcripts, Ring specifically and repeatedly backed away from making any promises.

Ring said he has given the city a list of the type and size of each business that will occupy the center. He said this list contradicts Hatch’s claim that the center has too many boutiques and discount shops.

In addition to the center’s main tenant, Omni Bank, which will occupy much of the first floor, the center has commitments from a posh San Francisco-based Chinese restaurant and two department stores, one headquartered in Taiwan and the other with stores in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Ring said he has invited the city to help with the choice of a second and possibly a third restaurant. But he said he will not give city officials a list of tenant names until they promise not to contact the tenants. Ring implied that the council’s request to know the names was tied to its desire to limit the number of Chinese-oriented shops.

“Why are the names so important unless his (Hatch’s) motives are other than those expressed?” Ring said.