SEAL BEACH : Huntington Beach Plans Stir Concern

Plans by Huntington Beach to allow as many as 18,500 additional homes and more than 3 million new square feet of commercial space in the city ignore the potentially serious impact on neighboring Seal Beach, that city’s council has protested.

“The thing that I’m amazed with is the amount of development the city of Huntington Beach is proposing,” Seal Beach Councilwoman Gwen Forsythe said.

The Seal Beach City Council has sent its neighbor a letter detailing the way the growth allowed by changes proposed for the General Plan could affect neighboring cities’ traffic and air quality.

Huntington Beach adopted its General Plan in 1976 and has made occasional revisions to parts of it since. Planners are working on the first comprehensive update to accommodate changes in the law, economy, development and population trends.

As proposed, the update also would allow 1.6 million more square feet of office space, 2.5 million more square feet of industrial space and 2,500 more hotel and motel rooms in Huntington Beach.

As proposed, Forsythe said, the update could jeopardize Seal Beach’s compliance with regulations set by the Southern California Assn. of Governments, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and other state agencies.

Among the faults Seal Beach planners noted in the report are that Huntington Beach listed Pacific Coast Highway between Warner Avenue and Anaheim Bay as a six-lane highway, rather than the existing four-lane divided highway; and the potential for traffic to generate 275 times the amount of carbon monoxide emissions allowed under state regulations.

Three alternatives to the proposed update are included in the environmental impact report, each with a different level of potential development. Seal Beach will support the “reduced build-out alternative,” which would reduce allowable Huntington Beach development by 25%.