As Costa Mesa hunts for housing sites, college district offers up parcels for rezoning

Embroiled in a lawsuit with the state over its compliance with housing mandates and searching for more properties where residential units might be built, the city of Costa Mesa could use an assist.

And one might be on the horizon, after a Coast Community College District trustee recently approached city planning commissioners with aproposal to add two properties to a list of parcels that could accommodate multifamily housing.

Owned by the district, the two sites comprise 4.37 acres at Adams Avenue and Pincecreek Drive, with Orange Coast College to the south and a four-story apartment complex to the north.

Though they are currently zoned for institutional use, the district has no plans to build on them, CCCD Board President Elizabeth Dorn Parker said during the public comment portion of a July 27 Costa Mesa Planning Commission meeting.

“It is in a perfect location for high-density housing,” she said.

Dorn Parker, who also serves on Costa Mesa’s Parks and Community Services Commission, added that the location is easily accessible by public transit and bike lanes. She recommended rezoning the land to allow for the development of more homes.

“This change in zoning could then allow the district the opportunity to consider building housing to meet the demands of the city,” she said. “If it can be rezoned to be included in the updated housing element for the state that timing could be beneficial for both the city and the district.”

Earlier this month, the state sued Costa Mesa and four other municipalities that have failed to adopt a housing element within their general plans satisfying a state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Assessment. The city must zone for an additional 11,760 residential units by the end of the current RHNA cycle in 2029.

City officials say they have been working closely with the California Department of Housing and Community Development to come up with a plan that meets the RHNA requirement.

In past comments, Mayor John Stephens said local planning staff have been cooperative with the state’s guidance so far, while other cities like Huntington Beach have openly challenged the housing mandate. He told the Daily Pilot he had “no idea why we would be named in a lawsuit under these circumstances.”

Costa Mesa submitted a draft of a housing plan to the state in March. And, according to city spokesman Tony Dodero, the city had already succeeded in rezoning to allow for an additional 11,760 units of housing in April. That was possible in part due to Measure K, an initiative that recategorized several commercial and industrial parcels in the city for residential use.

Part of reaching that number of units involved relying on residential overlays in certain areas to allow for the possibility of housing even if the property owner had no plans to do so.

However, that strategy backfired after a court ruling last October, New Commune DTLA LLC v. City of Redondo Beach , determined such a practice would effectively negate preexisting zoning designations, requiring any new construction to contain at least 50% residential units at a density of 20 units per acre.

A slew of Costa Mesa landowners, whose parcels had previously been counted as hypothetical housing sites — including South Coast Plaza — in March initiated a mass exodus from the city’s housing element, forcing planners to seek new parcels elsewhere. That process is still ongoing.

Meanwhile, Costa Mesa is still working to get its latest draft of a housing element certified by the state. The city “is open to meeting with any property owner that requests a meeting about development,” Dodero said.

Coast District has not yet had any formal discussions with the city regarding the unused land along Adams Avenue. However, Dorn Parker said the two parties communicate frequently. The board president added that over the past few years, her district and others have been reevaluating how their property is being utilized.

“A lot of this had to do with how education changed during and after the pandemic, with more instruction becoming remote and fewer students physically on campus,” she said.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District is currently negotiating with a developer bidding to lease an 11-acre plot for the construction of nearly 200 units of housing on a parcel of undeveloped land adjacent to the Randall Preserve in Newport Beach.

Supporters of that plan say it will bring much needed workforce housing to the city, but opponents note the land is adjacent to the site of a future nature preserve and want it to be incorporated into that conservation effort.

—Assistant editor Sara Cardine contributed to this report.