Slow-Growth Group to Renew Challenge of Costa Mesa Project

Advocates of slower growth in Costa Mesa are girding for a Planning Commission hearing Monday where, they say, they will try to block plans for a massive commercial development that would employ an estimated 11,000 workers when completed.

The public hearing was ordered by Superior Court Judge Tully H. Seymour, who ruled in September that the first phase of the planned development by C. J. Segerstrom & Sons could not go forward because it didn’t specify the maximum number of workers and square footage of office space that could be allowed.

The proposed project, known as the Home Ranch development, would include two commercial towers on 94 acres of what is now farmland in north Costa Mesa. The site is bounded by Fairview Road, the San Diego Freeway, Harbor Boulevard and Sunflower Avenue.

Costa Mesa Residents for Responsible Growth brought last year’s suit that threw the multimillion-dollar project into legal limbo. The group contends the project will clog city streets, add to pollution and change the residential nature of Costa Mesa.

Sandy Genis, vice president of the group, said its members are no happier with the Segerstrom proposal that will be considered Monday.

“We are as opposed to this project as ever,” Genis said Friday. “It will destroy single-family neighborhoods. We don’t want this kind of urbanization in a suburban area.”

Genis said members of her organization plan to pack Monday night’s meeting. “We will oppose this all the way down the line,” she said. “If this project is approved, we will take the necessary steps to see that a referendum is held to overturn its approval.”

The first phase of the development, known as One South Coast Place, will consist of an office complex on 16 acres containing twin towers, one 12 stories high and the other 20, said Malcolm Ross, director of planning and design for Segerstrom.

Friday he defended the new proposal that he will present Monday to the Planning Commission. He said its size has been reduced 10% from that previously approved by the city to 3.1 million square feet of office space.

“For the amount of acreage that it is on, this is very low floor space for a commercial development,” Ross said.

The figure of 11,000 workers, he said, was “strictly an estimate” of the number of employees when the entire Home Ranch project is completed in 20 years.

Clarence Clarke, a longtime member of the Planning Commission, said he expects a majority of the five-member board to approve the project “at or near” the level requested by Segerstrom.

Planning Commission Chairman Joe Erickson would not say how he expected the vote to go. But Erickson, who said he favors slow growth, said he hopes his colleagues will agree to a plan that he still is formulating that would “give us some leverage over Segerstrom.”

Under the plan, Erickson said, traffic monitoring devices would be installed on adjacent streets after One South Coast Place is built to determine whether the development’s car pools, staggered working hours and street improvements are sufficient, he said.

“If the traffic improvements were not working on the first phase,” Erickson said, “then we would have the leverage to come back to Segerstrom and say: ‘You can’t complete the project because you aren’t keeping your promises.”

Erickson said he had discussed this proposal with Segerstrom’s Ross, who said Friday: “We are agreeable. We have always said that prior to occupancy we would make whatever mitigation measures that would be required to support the project.”

Responsible Growth’s Genis, who also is a city planner in Newport Beach, welcomed the traffic monitoring plan as “helpful.” But she added: “I’m concerned about how much difference it will make. We’re talking about another 47,700 cars daily and tons of air pollution.

“So, I’m curious that (Erickson) would use that (leverage) expression. It gives the impression that the city has to go hat in hand to Mr. Segerstrom to ask him what to do.”

The public hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council chambers at City Hall, 77 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa.