HB Neighbors

Even those in the City Council and Planning Comission agree that there are problems with the DTSP and or EIR.  See the Jill Hardy Appeal here.

RALLY ‘ROUND!
HB DOWNTOWN RESIDENTS
WEDNESDAY NIGHT, Dec. 2, 2009
LAKE PARK PAVILION
6:30 PM

WE, coalition of residential
associations, NEED YOUR HELP
to discuss action against the longterm
Specific Plan recently
approved by the HB City Council!

The HB City Council recently APPROVED a new plan for the Downtown area to double its current size. This was done before knowing the impact of the traffic, parking and congestion that will result from Pacific City. This was done without taking into consideration the concerns of the residents. This was done despite 100% opposition from the residents, business and property owners in the area who spoke at the hearing.

We believe the city acted illegally in the process and short-cut our rights.

What‘s next: Because we believe the City did not follow the law, we are challenging them in court in a process especially designed to ensure our rights. CEQA, or the California Environmental Quality Act, is a statute that requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible. The environment in this case is referring to neighborhood.

We are a coalition of residents, business owners, commercial property owners and local neighborhood groups including “Huntington Beach Residents for a Balanced Downtown” and we all believe the City failed in their duty to serve the residents. To start the process, we fellow neighbors have made personal contributions and created a coalition to fund the litigation. We expect the litigation to cost be between $100,000 and $150,000. We have 30 days starting Nov 6^th to file the suit against the City or the option for a CEQA suit will be lost.

We are concerned that without the CEQA litigation the following things will happen:

• Significant increase in the number of bars, turning HB in OC “Party Central” for party goers
• More traffic congestion, beach congestion and more drunk drivers
• The Historic Main Street Library may be replaced with a much larger building
• More parking problems and an extension of the Main Street problems further into neighborhoods
• Large scale developments on 5th St, 3rd St, 2nd St & Main St north of Orange with tall buildings filled with bars, restaurants, retail and office space backing up to existing residences

How you can help: While we have gotten a great start, we can not stop the City without more support from neighbors. We need your help by contributing money and or your time. We need monetary contributions and block captains to help manage our efforts.  We have a high degree of confidence that we will win our suit which means that the City would be required to reimburse our costs. We commit that contributions over $200 will be returned excluding any hard costs, if we are successful and receive the reimbursement from the City. Contributions made anomalously will remain as such.

To make a contribution, please send check to:

HB Neighbors Litigation Fund
c/o Angela Rainsberger
738 ½ Main Street
Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Please contact us if you have any questions, want to become more involved or want to pledge support.