HUNTINGTON BEACH : 6 More Acres of Parkland Urged

A board member of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, an environmental group, is urging the City Council not to adopt a long-range development agreement with the Huntington Beach Co. unless the pact includes six more acres of donated parkland.

The City Council has scheduled a special meeting for tonight at 7 to consider the development proposal. If approved, it would grant the Huntington Beach Co., the city’s biggest landowner, a 15-year agreement to build in the 750-acre Holly-Seacliff area northwest of the downtown area.

The company is proposing to donate up to 41 acres of parkland if the City Council accepts the agreement.

But Lorraine Faber, a board member of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, said Sunday that the city should demand six more acres--specifically the six acres of Huntington Beach Co.-owned land adjoining Central Park at the corner of Ellis and Edwards streets.

Faber said those six acres are needed to connect Central Park to the county’s forthcoming Bolsa Chica Regional Linear Park. The linear park design calls for connecting Central Park, about 6 miles inland, with the wetlands and oceanfront of Bolsa Chica at Pacific Coast Highway. Faber said the Huntington Beach Co. owns a key piece of land needed for the new county park.

The key parcel, known as Parcel 19, is at the northeast corner of Edwards and Ellis, Faber said.

“This parcel is the linchpin, and if it’s not obtained by the city now, with this agreement, the Huntington Beach Co. will continually use the land as a carrot on a stick to get future concessions from the city,” she said.

Officials from the Huntington Beach Co. have said the city would benefit from the development agreement because the company, in donating 41 acres, would be giving more parkland than state law requires.

Faber, however, said that a portion of the 41 acres is undevelopable.

“Much of that land is wetlands or coastal bluff that the (California) Coastal Commission would not allow the Huntington Beach Co. to develop,” she said.

The agreement would allow the Huntington Beach Co. to build 3,780 houses in the Holly-Seacliff area. It would also allow the company 11 acres of commercial development and 54 acres of industrial construction in Holly-Seacliff.