BREA

In an emergency meeting called to resolve downtown parking issues, the City Council voted 3 to 2 Thursday to compensate a developer’s higher building costs on a downtown site, and to lease a parking lot with a local church for public parking.

The council agreed to charge the developer less for the downtown section it is building on to make up for increased construction costs. Eventually, the city Redevelopment Agency expects to lose about $232,000 in the deal. Councilmen Steven C. Vargas and Roy Moore voted against the plan.

The emergency meeting was called by Mayor Marty Simonoff. CIM, a Santa Monica-based development firm, had stopped building on one of the downtown “super blocks” because it said construction costs had risen too high for it to continue without securing more money from the city.

The unfinished super block is scheduled to contain the only adjacent parking for Taps Fish House and Brewery Restaurant, which opened almost two weeks ago. The Brea Baptist Church has a nearby parking lot that goes unused most of the week and can be used for patrons of businesses in the area.