Plan for troubled strip mall site moves ahead

Costa Mesa reviews proposal to build 24 homes on property where man was shot and killed recently.A little more than a week after a shooting left a man dead in a bar at Costa Mesa’s El Camino Shopping Center, residents are excited and relieved by progress in plans to replace the center with housing.

The city is now reviewing a developer’s plans for 24 single-family homes on 4,000-square-foot lots on the site where the strip mall now sits, between El Camino Drive and Coronado Drive. A public hearing at the planning commission could come in December, city planner Wendy Shih said.

The housing plans have been in the works for some time, and some residents consider them long overdue. For several years, residents have complained to the city that the shopping center was run-down, with most of its storefronts empty. Several streets in the neighborhood were the target of a 2003 gang sweep by local law enforcement.

More recently, on Oct. 23, Jose Pilotzi Salaiz of Costa Mesa was shot to death at a bar in the shopping center called “Juan” More Time.

At the behest of residents and the center’s previous owner, El Camino Partners LLC, the Costa Mesa City Council in 2001 rezoned the 2.3-acre property to allow homes. But El Camino Partners was never able to put a project together and ultimately sold the land to developer Eric Cernich.

Cernich could not be reached for comment Monday on his development plans for the shopping center.

The recent shooting came as a shock to the generally quiet neighborhood, but it cemented residents’ desire for new development, said Mike D’Alessandro, who has lived on Cibola Avenue in the nearby Mesa Del Mar neighborhood for more than seven years.

“We’re definitely even more anxious to get things moving along,” he said. “People can only be patient for so long. We’ve been patient for years.”

With a bar and liquor store close to schools and homes, the shopping center no longer fits the neighborhood, D’Alessandro said. The new medium-density housing development will fit in well because on one side are high-density apartments and on the other are low-density homes, he said.

“I have not heard one complaint about developing the El Camino shopping center,” said Lisa Reedy, president of the homeowners association for Mesa Del Mar. “People are very enthusiastically looking forward to the plans.”

If the housing plans are approved by the City Council, the developer will have a year to apply for building permits.

The new development will give a boost to ongoing efforts by the city and residents to improve the area, said City Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who plans to abstain from voting on the housing plans because she lives within 500 feet of the shopping center property.

The area gets something of a bad rap as being crime-ridden, but police data actually show a small number of crimes in the last five years, mainly drug-related, Foley said.

“Despite that center being in our neighborhood, property values continue to increase,” she said. “When that center is turned into residential, it’s just going to get better and better.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at [email protected].