YORBA LINDA : City Agrees to Buy Lot for $1.25 Million

The City Council ended a long dispute over plans to build a retail center by agreeing to purchase a prized, 1-acre parcel of land at the northeast corner of Yorba Linda Boulevard and Imperial Highway for $1.25 million.

Council members voted unanimously last week to buy the land, which could be a centerpiece of efforts to revive the downtown business district.

MS Partnership decided to sell the land to the city after the council voted in October to reject the company’s latest proposal to build an 8,400-square-foot retail center at the site. Council members said the entrance to the proposed parking lot would have posed a traffic hazard.

The partnership, which specializes in constructing shopping centers through La Mancha Development, had threatened to sue the city, saying city officials had wavered on approval of the plans for four years.

But city officials said the developer never could come up with safe access to the project, which would have been built at one of Yorba Linda’s busiest intersections.

“The problem since Day One was the driveway access right on the corner,” said Phillip Paxton, the city’s director of community development.

The land falls within the Town Center redevelopment area, where the city hopes to upgrade the historical downtown district. Over the last year, the city has been purchasing parcels of property in anticipation of creating a unified redevelopment project. The city has a policy that land within the area should be developed only in parcels of three acres or more, but several developers, including MS Partnership, have been granted waivers.

At several council and Planning Commission meetings, attorney Mark J. Linder of Century City said the partnership had spent $1.5 million on the project and had made little progress in winning the city’s approval.

Linder said that the partnership was “generally pleased” with the sale.

“We tried to do something that made sense for both sides,” he said.

As yet, the city has no specific plans for the site. But a design firm recently unveiled a concept to make the area a center for specialty shops and single-family homes and apartments, all aimed at attracting young families.