GARDEN GROVE : Redevelopment Plan Draws Opposition

Residents afraid that they may lose their homes through eminent domain proceedings have protested plans to add more than 500 acres to the city’s redevelopment area.

City officials have proposed several possible Civic Center projects, including rehabilitation of the current city hall for the short term and construction of a new, 40,000-square-foot building later. Other redevelopment possibilities include a new Civic Center parking structure, rehabilitation of Don Wash Auditorium at Garden Grove High School and expansion of Heritage Park.

The proposals could end up displacing residents if the city uses its power of eminent domain to condemn and seize properties in the project area. The City Council is scheduled to vote tonight on a redevelopment ordinance amendment that will serve as a wish list for a number of projects.

More than 100 residents attended a public hearing last week to voice concerns about the proposals.

Juanita Miller, an 88-year-old widow whose home on Monroe Street is one of those in the path of possible redevelopment, made her plea in a letter to the City Council.

“I ask you to let me live my remaining years in peace, at least peace of mind, because the fear over my home being in the redevelopment area carries with it an added fear that condemnation by eminent domain is always a possibility,” Miller wrote.

“They don’t know what to do with the property if they get it,” Miller said later. “But I do.”

Another resident, Ivan Morrison, said that elderly residents of the Oasis Mobile Home Park are worried about whether they would have to move because their park on Chapman Avenue is in the expansion area.

The residents are also worried that they may not get full value for their mobile homes.

“What’s going to happen to our pocketbook?” he asked.

Greg Devereaux, the city director of community development, said the agency has resorted to eminent domain to buy private property at fair market value for a public project only a few times since it was formed in 1973. He said he will ask that the mobile home park residents be exempt from any eminent domain provisions for the proposed projects.

“It’s not definite we can do these things,” Devereaux said. “But we want to do them.”

Also included in the redevelopment plan are the possible construction of a police facility in the western part of the city, expansion of the existing police administration building or a new jail for 80 inmates, a new fire administration building near Garden Grove Boulevard and Nelson Street, and rehabilitation of fire stations No. 6 and No. 7.

In addition, the plan mentions the rehabilitation of the Gem Theatre and adjoining amphitheater, including a roof cover and new restrooms, and a parking structure for the Village Green.

Other possible projects include widening Trask Avenue to extend to an auto mall east of Brookhurst Street, street widening and traffic-signal modification at 27 intersections, construction of a new reservoir at Magnolia Street and Trask Avenue, and assisting the Garden Grove Unified School District in construction of classroom facilities.