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New development’s lot sizes irk some residents

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The City Council this week decided to change development standards for a proposed Eastside Costa Mesa housing tract despite the concerns of some of the area’s residents.

The low-density tract, preliminarily named Harper’s Cove, is now poised to have 6,000-square-foot minimum lot sizes for the 13 single-family homes planned for construction within the roughly 2-acre, undeveloped space near Santa Ana Avenue and East 22nd Street.

On Tuesday, the council voted 3 to 2 to go with 6,000 square feet, a change from the 6,600-square-foot lots that members approved in June.

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The change will require a second reading at a future meeting before final adoption.

Councilwomen Sandy Genis and Wendy Leece dissented, as they did with the June vote.

Leece and some residents who live near Harper’s Cove had argued for 7,200-square-foot lot minimums for any new development — a larger dimension that homeowners of the area have long enjoyed.

“I don’t know why we wouldn’t respect the owners and go with their request,” Leece said.

Harper’s Cove is part of what’s officially known as Santa Ana/Colleen Island, a nearly 14-acre unincorporated county parcel near the Costa Mesa-Newport Beach border.

The neighborhood of about 150 residents, which Costa Mesa is looking to incorporate, currently falls under county standards that are different from Costa Mesa’s.

Those standards permit the larger, 7,200-square-foot lot size minimums; Costa Mesa standards set the number at 6,000 square feet.

The council majority’s vote ultimately would put Santa Ana/Colleen’s development standards in line with the rest of Costa Mesa’s neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes.

June’s vote for 6,600 square feet was seen as a compromise between 6,000 and 7,200 square feet, though the developer, Newport Beach-based Meadows Asset Management, later said it needs the 6,000 figure to make its plan work.

Peter Naghavi, a former Costa Mesa administrator representing Meadows Asset Management, presented the Harper’s Cove site plan to the council.

He said after meeting with Santa Ana/Colleen residents that they were concerned with rear setback spacing between the tract and Colleen Place. The compromise, he said, is the larger rear setback dimensions for seven of the Harper’s Cove homes that abut eight Colleen Place houses.

Those seven homes would have 18-foot rear setbacks for the first floor and 25-foot rear setbacks for the second floor, Naghavi said, adding that those dimensions exceed both the city and county minimums.

Naghavi said that this type of new development — low-density, with 3,000-square-foot homes starting around $1.3 million — is the type that Costa Mesans have been requesting for years.

“We need to embrace it,” he said. “We need to encourage it, not discourage it.”

Mayor Jim Righeimer and Genis expressed some concern that Tuesday’s vote would not be locking in the larger setback spacing. Both were complimentary of it, but said they worry that it could go away should Meadows Asset Management back out of the deal and another developer pursue the project.

Colleen Place resident Ken Defeo was critical of the site plan and the council majority’s siding with Meadows Asset Management.

“We’re not really listening to the constituents in the community,” he said. “We’re listening to somebody who owns property who wants to develop it.”

Santa Ana/Colleen resident Richard Alexander said part of the reason he moved to that neighborhood was for the larger lot sizes, which he argued should be maintained following Costa Mesa’s incorporation. His home on Vista Baya sits on a roughly 10,000-square-foot lot.

“Any lot size smaller that was agreed on before is not a compromise,” Alexander said. “It’s a broken promise and incompatible with my neighborhood.”

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