1920s Farm Faces 1990s Debate Over Its Future

Dennis Holtz lives on what’s left of his family’s farm, one of the last remnants of Huntington Beach’s rural past.

The Holtz farmhouse, built in 1923, is on a 1-acre parcel at Bushard Street and East Indianapolis Avenue. Still standing on the property are a wooden barn, erected even earlier, and a tin shed once used to store farming equipment.

No farming has been done on the property since the 1960s. Where crops once grew in the surrounding fields, there are now rows of houses built in the past 30 years, and residents of those tracts want a say-so in how Holtz develops his property.

“My neighbors are up in arms,” Holtz, 44, said this week. “They’re afraid of a 7-Eleven going in there. . . . People who I thought were neighbors are now enemies.”

The property became an issue when city officials reviewing Huntington Beach’s general plan, the blueprint for development, discovered that Holtz’s acre is zoned for commercial development.

Holtz and his family say they have no desire to change that right now and that the property is not for sale.

The property is more valuable, however, if it has potential for commercial development, Holtz says.

The neighbors are strongly opposed to that possibility, and 1,400 of them have signed a petition seeking to change the property’s commercial designation.

Among their concerns, residents said, are that their property values would fall and that traffic, noise and crime would rise if a convenience store or similar project were built there.

Keeping the property residential “has been our goal from Day One,” said George Naff, who lives nearby. “It makes sense.” A retail project, he said, “would create an environment not conducive to a residential community.”

After a public hearing on general-plan revisions, the City Council tentatively approved designating the property for residential use only, a disappointment to Holtz and a victory for his neighbors.

The council expects to finalize the revisions next month, officials said, and the planning staff will pursue a zoning change that would allow only houses on the Holtz property.

Holtz said that, though he had hoped to develop the property eventually, his plans had never included a convenience store or similar venture that might disturb the neighbors.

“No matter what we try and propose, residents will stop it,” he predicted. “I think we’ve lost. One more farmer just got walked over.”

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Corner Controversy

Neighbors fear commercial development.