Commission to consider light-rail plan

Susan McCormack

COSTA MESA -- At its meeting tonight, the Planning Commission will

consider adopting an official position on the county’s light-rail plan.

The commission will discuss recommending that City Council adopt a route

in which the CenterLine Project enters the city via Main Street, travels

west along Anton Boulevard and stops at a station at Avenue of the Arts.

This alternative, according to a staff report, will “have the greatest

potential to capture ridership and conform with the city’s desire for

system routing.”

The commission also will review an application to allow the Harbor

Christian Fellowship Church to shelter 14 homeless women.

The commission is expected to continue the item until Dec. 13, when it

will advertise it again, because the church originally requested to house

homeless men. According to a city staff report, the church recently

decided to house only women after discussions with Orange Coast

Interfaith Shelter.

The church, located on West Wilson Street, has requested a

conditional-use permit to use an existing room as a shelter. The item has

been extended several times since this summer to give the church time to

meet with neighbors to discuss the proposal.

The staff report said the neighbors most often voiced concerns about

noise. They said that the church already is the source of excess noise in

their area, and they questioned the ability of church officials to

monitor additional noise if the permit is granted.

The planning division’s staff is in support of the application, said the

report, because “the shelter could result in fewer homeless people

sleeping in the area or elsewhere in the city and ... the shelter is

consistent with the mission of a church.”