Council Green Lights 'McDonald's' Commercial Center

A proposed retail center that has stirred controversy because it might include a McDonald’s was given the green light by the Loma Linda City Council on Tuesday night.

A capacity crowd attended the meeting, which ran more than five hours. More than a dozen speakers addressed the council. Most were concerned about a McDonald’s coming into a city known for its healthy lifestyle.

It was nearly midnight when the council voted 3-2 in favor of allowing the project to proceed. Mayor Pro-tem Ovidiu Popescu and councilman Stan Brauer voted against the project, arguing that the project did not fit with the community as it was and could be detrimental to the surrounding neighborhood.

Terra Linda Commercial LLC plans to build a business center on a 7.7-acre parcel in the area of Barton Road and Mountain View Avenue. The property would be subdivided into seven plots. One parcel could become a McDonald’s. There is a proposed bank and grocery store in the center's plans.

There are condominiums behind the center. Despite reports and studies that determined that light, sound and traffic would not significantly impact the community, Popescu said he felt those needed to be further addressed.

He also worried about the unidentified grocer. If it turns out to be a 24-hour store, it could deeply impact its neighbors, Popescu said.

“We are here for the residents,” Popescu told the council. “And I think that if you do not recognize the impact that this will have on the community, I can understand why people would question the process moving forward.”

The city’s planning commission addressed many of the mayor pro-tem’s concerns, said Mayor Rhodes Rigsby. They were not given a free pass, he added. Many of the features built into the project did not come from the builders, but at the insistence of the commission.

The developer, The Koenig Company, which is handling the project for Terra Linda, has accepted and adopted the changes imposed by the city, Rigsby said.

While the council debated, members of the audience were more concerned with the proposed McDonald’s. The eatery has become the “poster child” for the obesity epidemic, said opponents of the project.

Most of those in attendance Tuesday night were in the medical profession, and they did not want the McDonald’s. The designation of the only Blue Zone in North America – a region where people live long healthy lives – could be compromised if they bring in the Golden Arches, many said. And it could lead to more fast food restaurants, some speakers said.

And the best way to keep the city’s brand as a healthy city was to restrict the availability of unhealthy foods, some said.

“Loma Linda should be about making the healthy choice not the easy choice,” said Juan Carlos Belliard, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health with Loma Linda University. “When you’re in a hurry, and it’s happened to me over lunchtime, and you only have a minutes to grab a bite to eat, you’re going to go for the easiest thing and that’s not always the healthiest.”

A vegetarian himself, Rigsby told the crowd that while he does not patronize McDonald’s, he could not deny a project based on a tenant that could change. And he was not willing to legislate people’s eating habits.

“Fairness and lack of capriciousness is a value that we have in this community,” Rigsby said. “When it comes to my overall philosophy of government, I tend to fall on the side of having the government get out of the way of making decisions for other people.”