Area residents anxious about construction at Rossmoor center

City Hall

As the Shops at Rossmoor center prepares for new businesses to open up, Seal Beach and Rossmoor residents are concerned about the potential impact on their quality of life.

For example, during the public comment segment of the Monday, Jan. 9 City Council meeting, College Park East neighborhood resident Patty Campbell raised her concerns about developments at the retail center.

“We need traffic and parking studies,” Campbell said.

She said the local residential streets were not designed for commercial traffic.

She said people were parking on Rossmoor side streets. Campbell asked the council to create an ad hoc committee to meet with the new owners of the Shops at Rossmoor.

She said Rossmoor was meeting with them and Seal Beach should also meet with them.

District 4 Councilman Gary Miller, who represents College Park East, said he wanted to reiterate what Campbell said. Miller said he had asked staff for a master plan for the center and learned there is none.

He said the city needed to ask the new owners for a master plan for the center. Miller said he had been told there are no parking studies associated with the new businesses that are coming into the center.

The center recently announced that a Toys R Us/Babies R Us store will be built in the center, along with several new restaurants and retail businesses.

Miller said he would like to be kept up to speed on what is happening. “It just looks like there’s a lot going on,” he said.

The Rossmoor Community Services District recently formed a committee to monitor developments at the shopping center, even though the center is located in Seal Beach and the Rossmoor board has no jurisdiction.

Last week, the Rossmoor Predator Management Team e-mailed the name and e-mail address of a representative of the new management company for the center to members of the volunteer group.

To make a comment on this story at the Sun Newspapers’ Web site, go to www.sunnews.org.