LOS ALAMITOS : Zone Change Clears Way for Townhomes

The City Council this week unanimously approved changing the zoning designation of 1.9 acres on the city’s southwest border with Long Beach where a Seal Beach developer is planning to build townhomes.

The change from open-area to multiple-family residential will enable Olson Co. and the property owners, Sharon Berg and Rush Labourdette, to proceed with the $12-million project, expected to get underway next year.

Mark Buckland, president of Olson Co., said that the project will be submitted for approval in March. If approved, construction could begin in September and the project is expected to be completed by February, 1995.

Buckland said his company is planning to build two- and three-bedroom townhomes that will sell from $150,000 to $210,000.

“We’re very confident about this project and that it’s affordable in today’s market,” Buckland said.

One acre of the property is in Long Beach. Together with the 1.9 acres in Los Alamitos, Olson Co. plans to build up to 73 townhomes, according to Los Alamitos Community Development Director Elizabeth Binsack.

She said the Long Beach side is already zoned “moderate density,” which would allow up to 29 units per acre. The zoning change in Los Alamitos will make it possible to develop the property as one piece, she said.

Binsack said the property is bounded by single-family homes on the north, a condominium complex on the south, and by the Coyote Creek channel on the east.

Binsack said access to the project would be from the Long Beach side, and traffic in Los Alamitos will not be affected.

The land has been owned by the Labourdette family since the early 1900s, according to Berg, daughter of longtime Los Alamitos resident August J. Labourdette, a former Los Alamitos council member who died in 1976.