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Los Angeles Times

Costa Mesa Council approves 40-unit Victoria Place, after planning commission denial

Perhaps not willing to let perfect be the enemy of the good, the Costa Mesa City Council last week approved plans for Victoria Place, a 40-unit complex near Newport Boulevard and Victoria Street previously rejected by the city's planning commission. During its earlier consideration of the condominium complex — which would be included in a rare and never-initiated residential overlay district allowing commercial properties to be used for housing — the planning commission denied the proposal in a 5-2 vote during a June 9 meeting. Commissioners contended the 1.77-acre parcel qualifies for rezoning under the voter-backed Measure K initiative and, as such, could potentially be more thoroughly developed to meet Costa Mesa's housing needs than what they regarded as the archaic mish-mash of alternative approaches and deviations placed before them. There's just one hitch. The citywide rezoning of certain commercial corridors under Measure K, passed in 2022, hasn't happened and is only now in the visioning stages. So while a transformation of the partially vacant site, currently home to a lighting store and boat storage facilities, into needed housing might be a welcome one, ideas on how to optimize that shift differ. Furthermore, the City Council initially reviewed the plan in a screening nearly one year ago, providing feedback on open space, landscaping and pedestrian safety, suggestions that were incorporated into an amended version of the plan. 'You were responsive to what we said in August,' Mayor John Stephens told applicant WMC Partners' Tony Weeda ahead of the July 15 vote. 'And it wouldn't be fair play, in my opinion, to lay some other objectives on you that we wouldn't express in August.' The approval of Victoria Place — named after the small side street it fronts — allows for 18 duplexes and four detached residences, each comprising roughly 2,700 square feet in three stories with a ground-floor work space, two-car garage, balcony and rooftop deck standing 39 feet, 6 inches in height. Although they are ownership dwellings, nothing would prevent an owner from renting out a unit. Fitting those units on the smallish lot requires setback reductions, a shrinking of space in between buildings and in garage width and a reduction in parking spaces, from the 150 required to just 103. Those entitlements and others will be codified in a site-specific master plan under the city's residential incentive overlay district, created in 2016 but never applied until now. Don Lamm — a consultant for WMC who also served as Costa Mesa's deputy city manager and developmental services director from 1986 to 2009 — told the council what planning commissioners saw as too-abundant 'deviations' might be instead viewed as viable alternatives for breathing life into an underutilized area. 'This is simply a very nice [40-unit] condominium project on a property that really needs to be recycled or redeveloped,' Lamm said. 'In reality, these deviations are good because it's the incentive the applicant needs to build this project to provide these new housing units.' Two people who spoke during the public comments portion of the meeting criticized the project as an inefficient use of the land and for the potential increased vehicle traffic it could present for residents. 'There's no clear expectation, either for the public or developer, no ideal to conform to that reflects what the city and public would like to see in the future,' said Costa Mesa resident and City Hall critic Cynthia McDonald. 'The planning commission got it right — this needs to be rethought.' Council members, however, favored the project, making minor modifications so that a landscaped peninsula out front, to remain under the city's purview, would be protected from vehicle traffic and steps would be taken to add architectural elements to the ends of the units fronting Victoria Place. Stephens said the development will transform a site that is currently blighted. 'It's exactly on point with language we had in Measure K, which we all fought so hard to get passed to change our kind-of outdated land use into housing,' he said. 'Could it be better? I don't know. [But] it's going to be a huge improvement when we drive by.'