HUNTINGTON BEACH : Parking Lot Won’t Need Voters’ OK

A beach-parks protection initiative that voters approved last November will not prevent the city from building a long-proposed paved parking lot near the beach, City Atty. Gail Hutton said Monday.

Hutton said the city can proceed, without voter approval, with the construction of a 300-space parking lot on the beach side of Pacific Coast Highway between 11th and Golden West streets.

Hutton gave her legal opinion to the City Council, which had expressed concern that a special election might be needed should Measure C apply to the parking lot. Save Our Parks spokeswoman Debbie Cook said she agrees with Hutton’s opinion that the initiative does not bar construction of the lot.

Save Our Parks led the successful drive last year to place Measure C on the ballot. The initiative prohibits any “structure costing more than $100,000 to be built on or in any park or beach” unless approved by a majority of the city’s voters.

“I personally never considered a parking lot as a structure,” Cook said Monday. “I don’t think anyone is going to challenge the building of a parking lot. A parking lot allows people to use the beach.”

The parking lot would make up for on-street parking that will be lost when Pacific Coast Highway is widened in the downtown Huntington Beach area. City officials have said the California Coastal Commission will not give final approval to the widening “until the loss of (on-street) parking is mitigated.”

The City Council earlier this year had expressed concern that Measure C might lead to a delay in building the parking lot and thus postpone the widening of Pacific Coast Highway. But Hutton’s opinion says “it seems a fair conclusion that a surface parking lot such as that contemplated by this proposal does not constitute a structure.”

“It is apparent from reviewing the legislative history of Measure C that its intent is to restrict commercial development and private use of recreational lands,” Hutton added. “It should be interpreted in that context and should not be unreasonably interpreted to preclude projects which enhance public use.”