FULLERTON : Proposed Restaurant Too Big, Council Says

A proposed restaurant is too big for a hilltop in a public park in the East Coyote Hills, the City Council decided Tuesday.

The proposed 438-seat restaurant in a 38-foot-tall structure should be scaled down, the council, acting as the city’s redevelopment agency, decided unanimously after an hourlong public hearing.

The action came as the council considered plans to develop an 11-acre public park on the southwest corner of Bastanchury Road and State College Boulevard. The city bought the hill for $2.5 million, and hopes to recoup the purchase price and the cost of developing a park by allowing a private company to run a restaurant on the site.

Anaheim-based Summit Restaurant Co. was awarded a 20-year lease for the restaurant in 1988 and presented the drawings for its planned Summit House restaurant to council members Tuesday.

The restaurant would offer one of the best views from the East Coyote Hills, with the ocean visible on a clear day and the lights of Los Angeles and Orange counties visible at night.

Surrounding the restaurant would be a low-maintenance, natural-setting park with the proposed name of Vista Park. The city’s East Coyote Hills master plan states that the restaurant should neither dominate nor detract from the open-space function of the park.

The city Planning Commission and Redevelopment Design Review Committee concluded after earlier hearings that the restaurant would dominate the park.