Flip-Flop Vote Saves Park, but Not City’s Face

Mayor Thomas J. Mays said Wednesday that there was a compelling reason--the possible loss of new parkland--for the City Council’s controversial flip-flop vote Monday involving the Huntington Beach Co. and its huge Holly-Seacliff residential project.

But Mays also acknowledged that the quick reconsideration, coming on the heels of floor lobbying by the general manager of the development firm, “was not the best way to do it.” Mays said the matter should have been continued and opened to a public hearing.

“It shouldn’t have been done in a hurried fashion,” he said.

At its Monday night meeting, the council initially revised the Holly-Seacliff zoning so that an area along Gothard Street area would change from “medium density residential” to “mixed development.” That permitted some light industrial development that city staffers had recommended.

A few minutes after the vote, however, Roger Work, vice president and general manager of the Huntington Beach Co., entered the council chambers and talked with Councilman John Erskine during a short break. When the meeting reconvened, Erskine moved for reconsideration of the Gothard Street change, and by a 5-2 vote the council lifted the “mixed development” designation so the zoning would return to residential.

Council members Peter Green and Grace Winchell, who voted against the reconsideration, later accused the Huntington Beach Co. of trying to control the council. Green said the council majority’s quick response to Work’s complaint on Monday night “shows we are a company town, and the company is the Huntington Beach Co.”

In an interview Wednesday, Mays said the council didn’t realize that altering the residential designation would have jeopardized some park acreage that the Huntington Beach Co. is scheduled to give the city. Under state law, called the Quimby Act, residential developers must give communities parkland in proportion to overall development.

Mays said the council’s initial revision of the Holly-Seacliff plan “had changed the formula (of residential development)” and could have resulted in a loss of parkland. Mays said the reconsideration vote simply restored the plan to how it evolved from the city’s Planning Commission. “Almost two years of public input had gone into the plan when it came to us from the Planning Commission,” the mayor said.

“I agree with Grace Winchell, who said that the issue should have been continued for two weeks and discussed at a study session,” the mayor continued. “I agree it did not look good.”

Mays, however, said the council frequently says no to the Huntington Beach Co. “There are a number of projects that come before the council, and the Huntington Beach Co. has never got everything they wanted,” Mays said.