LOS ALAMITOS : Owner Fights Panel’s Order to Repave City-Owned Alley

A local businessman hammered away at the City Council for two hours at its meeting this week, contending that conditions the city wants to impose on his planned coffeehouse amount to “double taxation.”

Lance LeCompte is seeking a use permit to turn a former antique shop on Los Alamitos Boulevard into a cafe. He has fought restrictions being sought by the Planning Commission since early November.

The focus of his fight is a $10,000 repaving job the commission wants him to do on a city-owned alley next to his property, LeCompte said.

The only access to the property’s parking area is the alley, so the city can require him to remove the asphalt and repave with sturdier concrete, city engineer Victor Rollinger said, citing a city ordinance requiring developers to replace alley asphalt with concrete when redeveloping. Because of a projected increase in traffic, the city is also asking that LeCompte improve access to the alley.

“It is my opinion that the city is on solid legal ground in requiring this repaving,” City Atty. Thomas W. Allen said.

LeCompte repeatedly insisted that he is not a developer. He said he is a private citizen who has paid city taxes to maintain alleys and that the requirements constitute a form of double taxation.

“I am simply proposing a change in use (of the building) . . . . This is tantamount to asking me to pay again for a service I have already paid for and never received.”

LeCompte also contends that skewed statistics were used to come up with the city’s traffic projections.

The City Council decided to continue the hearing for two weeks until it can review a traffic study that LeCompte commissioned and insisted be included in the deliberations.