PLANS have been submitted to use the site of an existing mobile home park in Westminster – the Green Lantern Village on Beach Boulevard – for a new housing tract (OC Tribune photo).

By Jim Tortolano

A proposal to build a new residential community of single-family homes and condominiums on the site of a mobile home park surfaced at Wednesday’s meeting of the Westminster City Council.

Ironically, perhaps, after a resident addressed the council with concerns that the city’s recently-approved general plan update would open the way for development of mobile home parks into other uses, a representative of a developer spoke briefly during the public comments about the Green Lantern Village, located at 14352 Beach Blvd., north of Hazard Avenue. He said he was available to answer any questions about the park.

Larry Lazar of Arete, a public affairs and project management consulting firm, told the Orange County Tribune that plans have been submitted to the city to develop the 12.5-acre site for a new housing tract. The park currently holds 125 spaces.

“The park is currently owned by the Walsh family,” he said, “and they are elderly and don’t feel they can properly manage the property any longer.”

Now falling under the city’s mixed-use/civic center land use designation, the proposed project would be the first under that portion of the general plan update.

But don’t expect an exodus or any shovels in the ground any time soon, Lazar said. “It’s the start of a very long process,” he said. An existing mobile home conversion ordinance requires a “closure” impact process aimed at helping residents to relocate to other mobile home parks, if that’s their desire, and provides other protections.

Such a development would likely require approval of Westminster’s planning commission and city council.

Also on Wednesday night, the council approved two applications for special event permits for ceremonies to commemorate the fall of the South Vietnamese government to communist forces in April 1975. One request was from the Vietnamese Community of Southern California for Friday, April 28, the other from The New Vietnamese Democracy for Saturday, April 29. Both permit requests are for the use of Sid Goldstein Freedom Park, 14180 All American Way.