A City Council meeting will be moved to Golden Hall next week to accommodate the large crowd expected when the council takes up the controversial $750 million One Paseo project, City Clerk Elizabeth Maland announced Monday.
In a report to the council, she said the county Registrar of Voters office examined 51,000 signatures on a ballot initiative against the 23.6-acre project in Carmel Valley and verified the required total of 33,224.
Now the City Council will be tasked with deciding whether to put the issue to the public for a vote, or rescind its previous approval of the project.
Maland said that discussion will take place next Monday, May 18, beginning at the special time of 1 p.m. Around 900 seats will be available to the public.
The proposed development by Kilroy Realty calls for 10 buildings encompassing nearly 1.5 million square feet of floor space, including shops, offices, a movie theater and more than 600 housing units south of Del Mar Heights Road, between El Camino Real and High Bluff Drive.
The project was approved on a pair of City Council votes earlier this year, by margins of 7-2 and 6-1.
Signature-gathering for the referendum was funded by Orange County-based Donahue Schriber, the owner of Del Mar Highlands Town Center across the street from the vacant property owned by Kilroy.
Many residents of the affluent neighborhood believe the project is too large for the site and will increase traffic congestion. They also argue that the city’s community planning process was ignored.
