2 Polls to Collect Ideas on Bixby Ranch Land

Residents in the College Park East section of the city soon will be polled by two groups representing opposite sides in the heavily debated development of the Bixby Ranch property.

Newly elected City Councilwoman Patty Campbell, a proponent of commercial development, said the city will pay the $500 to $700 needed for her to mail 1,750 surveys to area residents, soliciting ideas and advice over the Bixby issue.

Bixby Ranch Co. owns and plans to develop property in the northern section of the city, near a military facility and the Rossmoor area.

The surveys, expected to be mailed by the end of the week, follow a raucous town hall meeting last week, during which about 100 of Campbell’s critics stormed out of the meeting in protest.

Those critics, many of whom belong to the group known as Citizens Against Commercial Development in North Seal Beach, plan to distribute a survey of their own.

Joe Siler, a member of the anti-development organization, said his survey will ask residents to choose one of three development options currently under consideration.

Campbell’s questionnaire is expected to ask residents their ideas about how the land should be developed.

The group opposes purely commercial development but supports a combination of residential and commercial development.

The Bixby property has been a source of debate in Seal Beach, with development plans proposed and withdrawn in recent years.