HUNTINGTON BEACH : Groups Try to Block Road Expansion

Five years ago, Don Troy led a successful fight by homeowners to block the planned realignment of Pacific Coast Highway as part of the development of the Bolsa Chica area.

The proposal would have had the highway turn inland, northeast of the Bolsa Chica wetlands, and abut three major housing tracts, including Troy’s home.

Citizens Against Rerouting PCH is now concerned that the city is again planning a major thoroughfare near their back yards by extending Garfield Avenue west of Edwards Street.

Troy’s organization is among an alliance of residents’ groups arguing that the city is moving too quickly in planning to transform Seapoint Street, now a residential street south of the wetlands, into a link between Pacific Coast Highway and an extended Garfield Avenue.

The plan, in the works for the past two decades, would run Garfield Avenue to the city boundary at the edge of the county-owned wetlands. The extension would be built behind the 1,200 homes that Troy’s group is defending.

City planners are pushing the proposal to improve traffic access to developing residential areas near the Huntington Seacliff Country Club. And, as the city progresses with efforts to annex the wetlands, planners want to continue Garfield Avenue west toward the proposed 113-acre Linear Park.

But opponents say the plan presupposes a major Garfield Avenue extension, which is still being debated, and that the Seapoint Avenue alignment would chisel another chunk from the dwindling size of Linear Park.

City Council members last week delayed approval of the proposal, agreeing with residents who said it was premature.

The council will next consider the proposal after a series of traffic studies on the area are released in five weeks. But council members are divided on whether to approve the street extensions then or wait another 18 months, when Bolsa Chica development plans are scheduled to be finalized.

Amigos de Bolsa Chica, a coalition member dedicated to preserving as much of the wetlands as possible, doesn’t want a major road moving through the region, either. The group supports connecting Seapoint Avenue with Pacific Coast Highway but is calling for an environmental impact report before approving any other street extensions, said Lorraine Faber, an Amigos spokeswoman.

The Signal Land Co., a coalition member and the major landowner in the Bolsa Chica area that once supported making Garfield Avenue a high-volume street through the region, has now aligned with groups opposing the plan. Under the coalition agreement, Signal plans to develop several tracts of homes in Bolsa Chica, which the company figures will be sold more easily if they are not next to a major avenue.

Councilman Don MacAllister, however, backs that planners’ contention that the city must move quickly on the street extensions, mainly to provide emergency access to the new communities.

“We have to come up with a compromise to get that road built and open as soon as possible,” he said. “If we stop the process until plans for Bolsa Chica and Linear Park are in place, that road will not get built for 10 or 15 years.”