The Seal Beach City Council will hold a public hearing about the Housing Element of the city’s General Plan on Monday, April 9.
State law requires cities to have Housing Elements in their General Plan. Housing Elements must include potential sites for low and moderate income housing, also known as “affordable housing.”
The Planning Commission recently recommended seven potential sites for affordable housing.
Two of the properties on the list are the Shops at Rossmoor (in Seal Beach) and the Bay City Partners’ oceanfront property.
Bay City Partners do not intend to protest the affordable housing designation of the former Los Angeles Department of Water and Power site.
The Shops at Rossmoor was added to the list by the Ad Hoc General Plan/Local Coastal Plan Citizens Advisory Committee.
The designation has upset some residents of the condominium complexes located next to the Shops at Rossmoor center, as well as residents of the unincorporated community of Rossmoor and homeowners in Seal Beach’s College Park East neighborhood.
Councilman Gary Miller asked the citizen committee to take another look at including the shopping center on the affordable housing list.
According to Miller, the owners of the shopping center have no plans to build housing of any sort on the property.
The committee did take another look, but the Shops at Rossmoor remain on the list.
On March 20, the Planning Commission, at the suggestion of Commissioner Robert Goldberg, added the Bay City Partners property to the list.
Goldberg argued that none of the other property owners were planning to build at all. He said the Bay City Partner property development was further along than any of the other properties.
“We’re not going to protest the inclusion,” said Ed Selich, project manager for Bay City Partners.
“Our understanding is that it doesn’t affect our proposal,” Selich said.
The partners have asked the city to change the zoning for the property to allow 20 units per acre.
The current specific plan for the property calls for 70 percent open space and a hotel.
If Seal Beach designated the property for low income housing, the city would have to change the zoning to allow 20 units per acre.
However, state law does not allow cities to force property owners to build low or moderate income housing.
In Orange County, “affordable housing” refers to housing within the financial means of individuals who make between $47,000 and $100,000 a year.
Selich also said the partners have no intention of building low or moderate income housing on the site. Selich said the Bay City Partners plan to build an average of 10.7 units per acre on their property.
When Commissioner Goldberg proposed including the controversial Old Town area property on the affordable housing list, he also proposed removing the words “multi-family property” from the Housing Element.
Planners agreed unanimously.
Seal Beach officials need to complete the Housing Element and have it approved by the state before the city can submit a “Local Coastal Plan” to the California Coastal Commission.
If the commission approves a Seal Beach Local Coastal Plan, the state agency would transfer some of its permitting authority to the city. Seal Beach business and residential property owners would be able to construct their projects more quickly under an approved Local Coastal Plan.
The other properties on the affordable housing list include Accurate Storage, Sunset Aquatic Park, the Boeing parking lots along Westminster Avenue, the Marine Park expansion site and the State Lands Commission property at First and Pacific Coast Highway.
To make a comment on this story at the Sun Newspapers’ Web site, go to www.sunnews.org.
