SEAL BEACH : Hearings Planned on Old Ranch

Public hearings on the controversial Bixby Ranch Co. golf community have been delayed until September, when the City Council will consider conflicting Planning Commission recommendations.

The plan for Old Ranch calls for 223 homes bordering the golf course near Seal Beach Boulevard and commercial development on about 3.5 acres at Lampson Avenue. The Old Ranch Golf Course would be expanded by 50 acres, and a hotel and restaurant might be added.

Opponents of the project say it would make traffic congestion worse and subject new homeowners to safety risks from aircraft at nearby Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center.

Bixby Co. officials have pledged $1 million in traffic improvement fees, however, and have offered to build a new community center for the surrounding College Park East neighborhood.

After four public hearings and hours of sometimes angry debate over the project, the Planning Commission on July 19 approved the development’s environmental impact report. But commissioners voted 3-2 to reject a general plan amendment.

The City Council will begin reviewing the Planning Commission’s actions on Sept. 11. Officials predict that public comment could take up three council meetings.

Residents of this small beach city were sharply divided over the last major development proposal. Mola Development Corp.’s Hellman Ranch project sparked five years of debate and was eventually rejected by voters in a 1991 ballot advisory.

“We are one of the few beach cities that’s been able to hang on to our small-town atmosphere,” Mayor Marilyn Bruce Hastings said this week. “That’s what has always been at stake in this kind of development.”