STANTON : Requirement May Force Kingsmen Out

The 8,400-square-foot space in the Village Center strip mall seems the ideal facility for the Anaheim Kingsmen drum and bugle corps, with plenty of parking spaces and lots of room for everything from dance rehearsals to bingo games.

But the city’s requirement that the Kingsmen help pay for a new bus turnout on Beach Boulevard may send the group marching out of Stanton.

Now housed in a building on Katella Avenue, the Anaheim Kingsmen hoped to move to Village Center, at Beach and Garden Grove boulevards, which would provide a larger space for the practices and performances of the corps and color guard. The 30-year-old nonprofit group is rebuilding its bugle corps and hoped to have practices three nights a week in the new hall, group officials said.

The Kingsmen, who perform at field shows and stage their own performances, also planned to hold fund-raising bingo two nights a week for up to 299 people. On weekends, the hall would be used for other assemblies, performances and meetings, according to planning documents.

City planners determined that 91 parking spaces would be needed for the hall. The mall has 791 spaces, more than adequate.

The Planning Commission agreed that Village Center seemed ideal for the Kingsmen and approved a use permit this week. But as a condition of approval, the panel ordered the Kingsmen, or the property owner, to pay for building a bus turnout required as part of the county “super-street” traffic improvement project on Beach Boulevard.

City officials reasoned that the Kingsmen’s practices, performances and bingo games would generate more traffic, so the group should contribute to street improvements. Commissioners said they would ask any new use permit applicant for such a contribution.

Richard Fields, a representative of Shapell Industries, which owns the center, said his engineering staff estimated that the street improvement project would cost upward of $28,000. Kingsmen director Richard Oliverio said his group cannot afford that and added that the requirement will effectively force the group out of the city.

Oliverio and Fields further argued that saddling the existing, fully developed shopping center with responsibility for the bus turnout was unfair, particularly because the city has not determined its exact costs or even where the turnout will be.

“What does this have to do with our use?” Oliverio asked. “The bottom line is that’s the only facility we could find in the city. I understand the city’s position, but I just wish we weren’t the group this thing had to fall on.”

Planning commissioners expressed sympathy but stuck to their requirement, saying they did not want to set a precedent by waiving street improvement conditions.

Fields and Oliverio said they will appeal to the City Council.