COUNTYWIDE : Plan for SRO Units at Bus Site Dropped

Citing delays and neighborhood opposition, county transportation officials on Monday abandoned plans for 240 single-room-occupancy housing units above a proposed Orange County Transit District bus terminal in Huntington Beach.

Referring to several “hateful, spiteful” letters sent by residents opposed to having both bus traffic and low-income people nearby, Dana W. Reed, board member of the Orange County Transportation Authority, said he hoped that his agency wasn’t “buckling” under pressure.

“They were horrible,” Reed said of the letters. “One of them, for example, said: ‘We don’t need any poor people or more housing in our neighborhood.’ ”

SRO projects have been successful in San Diego and Los Angeles. Resembling residential hotels, they provide shelter for low-income people living in an area of sky-high rents and home prices.

OCTA Chairman Roger R. Stanton, a strong proponent of SRO housing, vehemently denied caving in to pressure. He said the developer on the project--Beach Front Development Co.--failed to meet guidelines written by the county’s SRO task force.

The guidelines steer SRO projects into commercial rather than residential areas. The proposed transit terminal site is bordered on three sides by homes and the Old World complex, where shop owners live in units built above their stores. The site, now a vacant dirt lot used by Golden West College students and others for parking, is at Gothard Street and Center Avenue.

Stanton also cited fears that additional delays would jeopardize federal grants obtained seven years ago to cover 80% of the cost of building the new bus terminal, which by itself is expected to cost $3.5 million for 12 bus bays and 115 public parking spaces.

OCTA planning manager Lisa Mills said the threat of community opposition, which could drag out the city’s environmental approval process for two years, convinced the OCTA staff that it was time to move ahead with the bus terminal without the attached housing.