Trial Date Set For Downtown HB CEQA Lawsuit – City Rejects Residents Suggestions
HB Neighbors take their fight to protect their neighborhood to the courts
Several months ago Huntington Beach Neighbors and our attorneys got together with the City of HB for a court mandated settlement meeting. In that meeting we reiterated that litigation was a last resort and it was our goal that the City would compromise by rescinding some of the more aggressive and extreme changes that would be allowed for Downtown under the new plan. You can see our list of considerations here.
We were told that the information would be passed along to the HB City Council for their review. After a few months without a response, our attorney’s contacted the Assistant City Attorney who told us that the HB City Council rejected our considerations and would not provide any counter proposal. They basically gave us the finger. While we were disappointed, it came as no surprise considering the manner in which the voting majority of the City Council operated throughout the DTSP hearings.
For those of you that have made it to downtown this summer, you can probably sense things ratcheting up a few notches past safe and comfortable. Now imagine a much larger downtown with 4-story buildings that extend further into the neighborhood with more mayhem.
There are many City leaders who believe that a BIGGER downtown means BETTER and we should just accept it. We say NO and hope that you will continue to support our grassroots effort to help protect downtown and our neighborhoods. We are not trying to stop progress or development, we just want it be a reasonable balance.
The trial date (hearing on the petition) is January 13, 2011 at 9am at Orange County Court, 751 W. Santa Ana Blvd, Santa Ana – House-Civil Complex Center — Department CX105. Mark your calendar as you are welcome and encouraged to attend.
We continue to fund this costly lawsuit with limited donations and resources. If you live, work or play in downtown, your contributions to help protect the area are much appreciated. Protecting downtown and our neighborhoods will not happen without active support from you.
I think bigger is better, this is progress and we should support our city leaders in growing HB into a bigger and better place. I have a family and we love to go downtown, I think that The Strand is great and we need to add more to HB. We live and work downtown and I think this is a great idea.
I always say “people see what they are incentivized too see”. Josh by any chance is your income derived by the sale of properties in Huntington Beach? In fact are you not a sales man in the real-estate market that will ultimately personally benefit from additional development downtown? I live down town……. and I’ve got your number. My family will not be using your title services again. Frank Dodd
Josh – when you say we need to add more to HB what exactly are you referring to? More traffic, more DUI’s, more crime, more late nigh helicopter, more parking problems, more public urination/defecation, more drunks wandering through our neighborhoods, more fights, more pollution… well I assume you get the idea. You are certainly welcome to your opinion and I’d be more than happy to set a time to discuss the issues we’re trying to address – just send me an email (you can find it in the contact us section of the site). We do not want to stop development or progress, we just want it to be done responsibly.