HUNTINGTON BEACH : Land Swap Stalled for Further Study
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Some City Council and Planning Commission members this week stalled a planned land exchange between the city and the Huntington Beach Co., arguing that the city should keep a quarter-acre parcel as a possible site for a water recycling facility.
The council delayed a decision until July 1. Officials meanwhile have asked planners to research whether another property could substitute for that parcel.
Pacific Coast Homes, a home-building subsidiary of the Huntington Beach Co., owns a three-quarter-acre slice of the parking lot east of City Hall, which the city has maintained since the lot was completed two years ago. But, lacking the available money to buy that lot outright, the city has yet to formally acquire the property.
Under the city’s proposal, in exchange for the parking lot property the city would give the company a quarter-acre parcel atop a hill at Golden West Street and Clay Avenue. The developer hopes to build seven single-family homes.
The city would also pay the firm $426,000 in future redevelopment funds to make up the difference in value of the two properties.
The city acquired the tiny lot on a hill in 1988, with plans to build a water pump station on it. Officials said the land is ideal for such a use because it is elevated and would require less energy to pump water.
But those plans were abandoned when the city instead built the facility next to a reservoir at its water storage yard at Garfield Avenue and Huntington Street. City planners say the land on the hill is now virtually worthless and can easily be spared to help square the debt to the developer.
But most Planning Commission members disagree, and they rejected the land exchange proposal last month.
Councilman Don MacAllister appealed that decision, which the council discussed during a public hearing on Monday. At that hearing, Planning Commissioner Victor Leipzig, who has led the opposition to the exchange, argued that city staff members have not studied the site closely enough and that it may still be usable as a water facility.
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