HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Cracks Whip on Violations at Stables

Planning commissioners this week increased pressure on the owner of the Huntington Central Park Equestrian Center to correct city code violations that they say have created unsafe conditions there.

According to a city review of the center released this month, violations found at the 25-acre site include poor waste removal and drainage systems, inadequate on-site accommodations for some of its workers and inadequate public restrooms. Several planning commissioners have also criticized the facility, which houses 350 horses, for insufficient lighting. They say this makes the grounds unsafe for late afternoon and evening riders.

Planning Commission members have chastised Mary Harris, the facility’s owner and operator, for failing to improve conditions nine months after being notified of the problems. They have ordered Harris to make all required renovations by Feb. 2.

If she fails to do so, commissioners may repeal the center’s permit for 80 horse stalls added to the facility this year. And this week, Commissioner Kirk Kirkland threatened to ask the City Council to revoke Harris’ permits to operate the center unless she corrects the code violations.

During this week’s commission meeting, Harris defended her efforts to comply with city regulations.

She said the city bureaucracy has snarled her attempts to deal with some of the staff’s demands. She said that, as an example, she cannot connect wash racks inside the stalls to the main sewer system until the city completes a storm drain it is building for a nearby development.

Other staff complaints, such as a request to add four toilets to the women’s restroom, she dismissed as unnecessary.

Harris agreed, however, to meet the city’s other demands by next month.

She could not be reached Wednesday for additional comment, but Ginny Spooner, who runs the center’s riding school, said the commissioners’ complaints stem from “five boarders who are stirring the pot.”

“This is the nicest facility in Orange County,” Spooner said.

The violations were uncovered in March, when Harris was granted a permit to build the new pipe-lined stalls. The permit was allowed on the condition that Harris fix 26 code violations identified by city staff within six months.

But eight of those violations remain, according to the staff review.

Among the problems: Two trailers have been converted to residences for workers without acquiring city permits, city officials said, and one of the trailers has no restroom.