HUNTINGTON BEACH : Council OKs Condos at Harbour Bay Club

Ending eight years of citizen protest and a string of legal maneuvers, the City Council has approved a proposal to build a new condominium complex at the Huntington Harbour Bay Club.

Councilmen Wes Bannister and Jim Silva had appealed the Planning Commission’s approval in November of the four-story, 36-unit project on Warner Avenue near Edgewater Lane just east of Pacific Coast Highway. The two officials were concerned that the complex would increase street parking problems in the surrounding neighborhoods.

But Bannister, in a surprising move at Monday’s council meeting, dropped his opposition to the project, clearing the way for council approval of the development, which will be built in conjunction with the bay club. The council, after two hours of debate, then approved the project early Tuesday morning.

In an interview later, Bannister said he decided to support the proposal because project developer John Coultrup “gave me his word” he would comply with a state Coastal Commission mandate to allow public access through the development to the marina while maintaining a fence along Edgewater Lane to discourage parking on nearby residential streets.

The project was originally approved in 1983 but later revised and scaled down to its current size of 36 units.

Among those opposed to any development on the 3.2-acre site were Norman Smith, president of the Huntington Harbour Property Owners Assn., and Marti Klarin, an Edgewater Lane resident who gathered 23 signatures from neighbors on her street denouncing the complex. Smith and Klarin complained that because the project’s environmental impact report is 7 years old, a new study should be done to evaluate traffic and parking in the area.

Even though the project received council and state Coastal Commission approval in 1983, construction was held up by concerns over the Newport-Inglewood earthquake fault that runs under the area, state concerns over access to a nearby beach and legal challenges.

The current plan calls for two 18-unit buildings separated by a gap under which runs the fault.