HUNTINGTON BEACH : City OKs Bluffs Plan, Scraps Parking Lot

Improvements to the bluffs on the coastal side of Pacific Coast Highway between Golden West and 9th streets were approved this week by the California Coastal Commission.

But commissioners scrapped a plan to build a parking lot below the bluffs.

The 246-space parking lot was planned along an abandoned oil access road, next to the beach. Building the parking spaces against the bluffs was opposed by residents.

Mayor Linda Moulton Patterson, who is a member of the Coastal Commission, voted Thursday to delete the parking lot from the plans.

“My reason was that it would change the character of the beach forever,” Moulton Patterson said. “I’m not convinced that we absolutely need the parking.”

Moulton Patterson and other City Council members approved a coastal development permit in February to build the parking lot as well as the park improvements on top of the bluffs.

Moulton Patterson said the council’s vote in favor of the parking lot was to ensure public access to the beach.

“But after studying it, public access is definitely being achieved, and it was not worth it to me to change the character of the beach,” she said.

Improvements on top of the bluffs include building separate paths to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, installing new lighting, constructing a new retaining wall and putting in landscaping, said Ron Hagan,city community services director.

Hagan said that because the parking lot will not be built, permanent restrooms and concessions also planned for the base of the bluff won’t be constructed. Portable toilets will continue to be used, he said.