Local News in Brief : Costa Mesa : Home Ranch Critics Turn In More Petitions

A Costa Mesa residents’ group fighting the proposed Home Ranch development project delivered a batch of petitions to the city Friday in hopes of forcing a November referendum on the revised version of the controversial project.

Jay Humphrey, a spokesman for Costa Mesa Residents for Responsible Growth, said the group had collected 5,685 signatures--about 1,500 more than required--in the past three weeks in an effort to place a referendum on the revised plans for the Home Ranch project. The revised plans call for a development of 2.18 million square feet. The group already has succeeded in forcing a similar November ballot measure on the earlier version of the project, to contain 3 million square feet.

C.J. Segerstrom & Sons is proposing the project. Under both plans, it would contain two high-rises and commercial facilities on 94 acres bounded by Fairview Road, the San Diego Freeway, Harbor Boulevard and Sunflower Avenue.

After the City Council approved the first plan, the residents’ group gathered enough signatures to force the matter onto the November ballot. The City Council responded last month by approving the scaled-down version of the project.

Critics say the revised plan is unacceptable to them because it would still allow the two high-rises, one 20 stories, the other 12 stories. Humphrey said that the high-rises would set a bad precedent for building heights and that the entire development would be too dense and “generate a tremendous amount of traffic.”

Costa Mesa Mayor Donn Hall, a firm supporter of the Home Ranch project, said he was not surprised when he learned that the petition circulators had collected enough signatures for a second referendum.

“They’ve got a pretty good mailing list right now, and they do a pretty good job of writing letters that scare people,” Hall said.