COSTA MESA : Mayor Feels Driven to Finish Road Work

Several long-awaited improvements to traffic flow will be completed in 1990, and work on at least one other major transportation project will begin.

Mayor Peter F. Buffa said he also expects the City Council to approve a new General Plan by March or April, culminating four years of work to design a new blueprint for the city’s development.

“I can’t remember a time in Costa Mesa when there wasn’t some kind of street project disruption for drivers to cope with, and it’s nice to have the resurfacing and flood control improvement project on Harbor Boulevard completed this year,” Buffa said.

But residents will have to be patient a while longer as the widening of Victoria Street continues into 1990, he said.

“That project, which is about 20 years late and desperately needed, is scheduled for completion this year, along with a comprehensive redevelopment of the Triangle Square area,” Buffa said.

Work is also scheduled to begin this year to complete the Costa Mesa Freeway.

“We have waited over 20 years to finish this project, and I’m really glad to see it finally come about,” he said.

Buffa, who along with Councilman Orville Amburgey is up for reelection this year, predicted that the painstaking process of approving the new General Plan will proceed without major delays.

“We seem to be striking a balance between the Proposed General Plan presented by the City Council and an alternative plan proposed by a citizens’ steering committee,” he said.

The plan will set the city’s first building limits for commercial, industrial and institutional land-uses and will reduce the limits for high-density residential development.

Future hearings will center on a new land-use designation affecting the Home Ranch project, which has been the subject of an extended battle between developers and slow-growth proponents.

“Those are the major issues facing us, but there are several sidelights that are rather important to me,” Buffa said. He cited the Police Department’s plan to add an anti-gang unit to work with schools, and tentative plans to expand the Immigration and Naturalization Service Jobs Center.

“Volunteers from our community literacy project have begun an experimental project there to teach English to the workers, and I’m very interested in their success,” he said.