ANAHEIM : Council Turns Down New Arena Hearings

The City Council Tuesday voted 4 to 1 to reject a request to hold new hearings on an environmental impact report for a proposed $95-million, 20,000-seat indoor sports arena.

“The EIR was sufficient already,” Mayor Fred Hunter said. “Why give it a rehearing when we’ve already been through it.”

The request for new hearings was filed by the Los Angeles Rams, a development firm, a neighboring mobile home park and others who maintain that the city improperly rushed approval of the environmental report without adequate consideration to the effects of the arena.

Meanwhile, the issue is being debated in court. The city agreed last week to extend a moratorium on construction of the arena, bowing to pressure from the Los Angeles Rams and others.

An Orange County Superior Court order forbids grading, demolition or construction on the site of the proposed arena on Douglass Road north of Katella Avenue, pending a court hearing in May or June on the environmental report. The city, the Los Angeles Rams and Anaheim Stadium Associates, a development company, agreed to the order. The owners of Orange Tree Mobile Home Park also are in court challenging the city’s environmental report.

Opponents of the arena claim that the environmental report was hastily prepared because Anaheim is racing Santa Ana to be the first to open an Orange County arena. The Santa Ana City Council has approved an environmental impact report for a nearly identical, $75-million, 20,000-seat arena.

The court challenges threaten to delay construction of the Anaheim arena, which the city had hoped to open in time for the start of the 1991 professional basketball season. The delay could also complicate Anaheim’s efforts to lure a National Basketball Assn. or National Hockey League franchise to town.