City Sets Stage for Downtown Cleanup

The Huntington Beach City Council laid the groundwork Tuesday night for a crackdown on building and health code violations in the downtown redevelopment area, offering assistance to property owners but also directing the city attorney’s office to prosecute violators.

The Seismic and Facade Improvement Loan Program was approved unanimously to give property owners assistance from city employees with estimates, appraisals and applications for federal loans.

Other downtown cleanup actions included directing the city staff to obtain facade easements from property owners in return for grants of up to $15,625 for 25-foot lots and $31,250 for 50-foot lots to be spent on improving building exteriors.

Owners in the block bounded by Main Street, Olive Avenue, 5th Street and Walnut Avenue would be given priority because city officials view that area as having the most dangerous public safety problems.

A staff report to the council proposes that the grant program would be paid for with $450,000 from the city’s Community Development Block Grant funds--money earmarked for residential property owners’ improvements--and $400,000 from the relocation account of the same program. In return for the grants, property owners would have to design the outside of their buildings in accordance with city guidelines.

A brief but controversial videotape of critical seismic building deficiencies and living conditions that city Environmental Officer Susan Tulley called “extremely dangerous” was shown last month at what was to be a redevelopment review attended by both the City Council and the Planning Commission. The tape, however, stole the show, and the council voted unanimously to have a Downtown Task Force make detailed inspections and recommendations for a comprehensive cleanup.

Tuesday night the council directed the city staff to draft an urgency ordinance requiring that a bathroom or bathing facility be provide for each dwelling unit in newly constructed or reconstructed (more than 51%) hotels, motels and similarly occupied buildings.

The task force--made up of inspectors from the city housing, building, fire and environmental departments--was asked to provide a progress report in six weeks.