Garden Grove : City OKs Petition to Install New Lights

The City Council has approved a petition by residents on Hoggan Avenue to install new street lights over a 1 1/2-block area of the neighborhood that has been dark for a number of years.

The council voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to approve the proposal, which calls for property owners to pay for the cost of installing the lights.

Councilman Robert F. Dinsen dissented, because he said the estimated $3,700 cost of installing the lights could have been cheaper if the city had hired a private contractor to do the job.

Southern California Edison Co., which will install the lights, will be responsible for their maintenance, officials said.

“It’s good for the residents,” City Manager George Tindall said. “We couldn’t do it any less expensive than the Edison Co. could.”

Tindall said that if the city were to install the lights and pay for their maintenance, including assuming liability, the cost could be more than $9,000.

The owners of 22 parcels in the area will see an increase in their lighting and landscaping assessment fees, which are included on property tax bills. Owners will pay $171 for the 1994-95 fiscal year. Twenty-one property owners currently pay about $20 for landscaping and lighting. One owner pays more because he has multifamily units on the land.

By 1996, Tindall said, the property owners would be paying $53 a year, the amount other homeowners on Hoggan Avenue are currently paying.

In a public hearing before the council vote, no one from Hoggan Avenue spoke for or against the lighting project.

Bill Patapoff, the city’s engineering services manager, said the lights would be installed in “six to eight months.”

He said the residents had asked the council to install the street lights about a year ago.