COSTA MESA : 93 People Speak on General Plan

With a capacity crowd inside the 408-seat Neighborhood Community Center, the City Council heard 93 people speak this week at the last public hearing on the proposed General Plan.

The plan, which is the blueprint for the city for the next 20 years, has been written over the past seven years. It outlines where commercial, industrial and residential development may take place in the city.

The plan will be discussed again and possibly adopted by the council at a meeting Thursday.

Many of the speakers on Monday night urged the council to adopt an alternative slow-growth plan that would limit the development of apartment complexes and condominiums and preserve single-family neighborhoods.

Others urged the city to continue its opposition to the county plans to widen some city streets and build bridges over the Santa Ana River at 19th Street and Gisler Avenue.

A county proposal to build the bridges and widen East 19th Street will be examined in a study by the county and Costa Mesa, as well as by the neighboring cities of Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Newport Beach. The study is expected to take 12 to 18 months.

Residents said they fear that the bridges would bring more traffic, noise and pollution to the city. They also said they fear losing entire neighborhoods to street-widening projects that would demolish homes throughout the city.

The East 19th Street widening would take 69 homes from Newport Boulevard to Irvine Avenue.

Despite the opposition to those projects, Councilman Joe Erickson said, it may be wise to leave them in the General Plan while the study takes place, and then amend the plan later.

The city stands to lose millions of dollars in transportation funding from the county if its street plans do not match.