Seal Beach on Monday, Oct. 21, emailed a letter to Los Alamitos questioning the Lampson Avenue project.
The Seal Beach Environmental Quality Control Board on Oct. 16 unanimously agreed to have staff draft a comment letter on the Los Alamitos Lampson Avenue project. The letter would come back to the Environmental Board for approval before being sent.
Sewer system sustainability and traffic impacts were among the concerns raised by residents and members of the EQCB at last week’s roughly 90-minute long discussion of the proposed residential development in another city. This was a special meeting of the EQCB. The regular meeting of the board, set for Oct. 23, has been canceled.
The letter
The Oct. 21 letter raised concerns about flooding, sewer system impacts, transportation, transit contraints, traffic flow, traffic, construction impacts, preservation of local infrastructure, and safety concerns.
“Overall, the proposed plan for the Lampson Park Project raises significant concers due to its excessive density and premature nature,” said the letter signed by EQCB Chair Catherine Showalter.
The discussion
The Los Alamitos Planning Commission meeting was scheduled to look at the Lampson development on Wednesday, Oct. 23. The meeting was held after the newspaper’s deadline.
The Lampson project proposes the construction of 246 residences on the Los Alamitos side of the Los Al/Seal Beach border. Many College Park East residents have raised concerns about the Lampson project.
The Seal Beach Environmental board held a special meeting last week to discuss the Environmental Impact Report for the project. The document is 2,300 pages long without the appendices. The project EIR has not yet been certified.
The following is a summary of highlights from the meeting.
Residents
Nine individuals raised their objections to the project during the public comment part of the meeting.
Patty Campbell, the District Four (College Park East) representative and chair on the Planning Commission, raised the subject of the sewer system.
Campbell said one of the Los Al Planning Commission members decided they would figure out the sewer system later.
Campbell said Los Alamitos could not run a sewer line down Seal Beach Boulevard because it was cost prohibitive and they would have to do it by hand because there is a gas line that runs along the northern side of Lampson Avenue. She said it was the main gas line between San Diego and Santa Barbara.
Campbell then turned to the question of Seal Beach’s sewer system.
“I understand we’ve got seven or eight areas in the track where the sewers are getting compromised because they’re old,” Campbell said.
She said when the office building was operating, people were flushing toilets 9 to 5. With a housing development, they would be flushing toilets 24/7. She said they would be taking showers and using dish washing machines.
“Can our sewers take it?” Campbell asked.
“Everything about their project is done at the expense of Seal Beach,” Campbell said.
“Where are they going to park? College Park East,” Campbell said.
Carol Churchill, of Rossmoor, suggested the Environmental Board look at a global infrastructure plan that would include not just Seal Beach’s sewer system, but Seal Beach’s storm drains and other utilities.
Ken Scythe, of College Park West, suggested a groundwater system for the whole city. According to Scythe, the Haynes Pipeline Project in College Park West and the Lampson Avenue project both will have a tremendous negative impacts for Seal Beach and very few if any benefits.
Patty Senecal, candidate for the District Four council seat, said she didn’t see the rush.
Senecal said Los Alamitos was rushing the final EIR.
“I think we need to take our time,” Senecal said.
“What is our liability 10 years from now, 20 years from now?” she asked.
Mike Gormley of College Park East, a commercial real estate broker, suggested denying the developers anything.
District Four Councilwoman/Mayor Schelly Sustarsic cited an email from Seal Beach Police Capt. Mike Ezroj that said there had been 32 accidents on Lampson since Jan. 2, 2017.
Board members
District Five Board Member Don Horning expressed concerned about the Seal Beach sewer system, storm drainage, transportation, soil, and the gas main line.
“If we want to say that it’s too much of a problem for Seal Beach, we should say that that’s off,” Horning said.
District Three Board Member Susan Perrell commended staff on their work on the letter commenting on the EIR. She said she had a lot of comments and questions. She suggested a reduced project would reduce the impact of the Lampson project.
District Four Board Member/Chair Catherine Showalter said there were discretionary permits for the project that would have to be approved by the Seal Beach City Council.
At that point in the meeting, Patty Campbell got out of her seat to approach the podium. Environmental Board Chair Showalter told her the public comment period had closed.
Campbell continued to the podium.
Campbell said in this case, the developer picked the consultant for the EIR.
“Seal Beach is not required to use the data that they supplied,” she said.
“The only thing that we have over them is the sewer,” Campbell said.
The draft Environmental Impact Report includes comments on the project, including city government of Seal Beach comments and the responses to those comments. One of the city government comments was: “The DEIR assumes Seal Beach will approve an inter-jurisdictional sewer service agreement; however discussion of alternatives should be provided should the agreement not be approved.”
According to the response, the project is within the Rossmoor/Los Alamitos Area Sewer District sewer service area. “RLAASD does not, however, have sewer lines that connect to the Project site. As a result, since approximately January 1975, the City of Seal Beach has been providing sewer services to the Project site.”