Seal Beach Citizens to Vote June 4 on Mola Plan : Development: The election could end years of controversy over the $200-million housing proposal for the Hellman Ranch.

The City Council has called an election for June 4 to let voters decide whether Mola Development Corp. should be allowed to build a $200-million housing development on the Hellman Ranch property.

The Mola-backed citizens committee that successfully organized the initiative had offered to pay $25,000 of the special election costs if the council set a date by Monday, but the council did not vote on that offer. The election will cost the city about $50,000, the city clerk estimated.

Councilwoman Marilyn Bruce Hastings abstained from the election vote, contending that she felt that the council had been pressured to act by Seal Beach Citizens for Parks, Open Space and Responsible Government.

The debate over Mola’s project has divided the community since 1986, a period marked by lengthy meetings, negotiations and courtroom battles.

“I’ve been through five years of this, and I think we need to get it out of the council chambers and out of City Hall and to a vote of the people as soon as possible,” Mayor Edna Wilson said.

Along with the initiative, the ballot will include an advisory measure that spells out other ways that the Hellman Ranch property could be developed. Voters will be asked if they would like to see a golf course, parkland and wetlands on the property, along with a country club, restaurant, conference center, retail shops or a small hotel. The advisory proposal would apply only if the initiative fails.

The council majority favors development only on a narrow bluff area of the Hellman Ranch site.

Councilman Joe Hunt, who abstained from the vote to place the advisory measure on the ballot, said he thinks that such a plan is economically unfeasible. “There is just no way in the world this will pencil out,” he maintained.

Hunt and other proponents of Mola’s project argue that the 329-home development will benefit the city, bringing 26 acres of parks and 41 acres of restored wetlands. According to a recent financial analysis by Stanley R. Hoffman Associates, the project will bring $600,000 to $900,000 a year to city coffers.

Members of Seal Beach Citizens United, which opposes the initiative, had questioned that analysis, paid for by Mola, and hired their own consultant to review it. He concluded that the Redevelopment Agency would receive only about half as much money as projected by Hoffman.

But Denis Thomas, the city’s finance director, said he thinks that the Hoffman findings are accurate.

In a written report to the council, he said the project’s benefits would help maintain city services and overcome major financial problems. “To forgo such benefits will leave the city not only vulnerable to the uncertainties facing all California cities, but may well expose Seal Beach to a financial plight curable only by higher taxes or lower service levels,” Thomas said.