Housing plan for area near Disneyland dies

After three hours of rancorous debate Tuesday, the Anaheim City Council split on a vote to approve a controversial housing proposal near Disneyland. As a result, City Atty. Jack White said, a previous Planning Commission ruling against the plan will stand.

The unusual 2-2 tie vote resulted from Councilwoman Lucille Kring leaving the meeting before the proposal was discussed. Kring said she had a conflict of interest because she holds a lease in the GardenWalk retail project near the site.

Mayor Curt Pringle and Councilman Harry Sidhu voted against the proposal, with council members Lorri Galloway and Bob Hernandez supporting it.

Disney officials, who have opposed the proposal from the outset, expressed relief.

“Right now our position was the winning one,” Disney spokesman Rob Doughty said. The resort “vision” for the area is protected, he said, protecting a large proportion of general fund revenue for the city.

More than two dozen business leaders and community activists spoke out against the housing proposal, including representatives of Disney and hotels in the resort district.

The public hearing on Platinum Pointe came three weeks after the Planning Commission unanimously rejected a proposal to allow 225 apartments and 1,275 condominiums on 26 acres at Katella Avenue and Haster Street. While acknowledging the merits of the lower-cost housing that the proposal would allow, the commissioners said then that it was more important to preserve a 13-year-old zoning plan that had revitalized a district once lined with tacky retail and souvenir shops and seedy motels.

Disney officials have opposed the proposal ever since the council gave it the green light in August by voting 4 to 1 to permit residential complexes within an area of the resort being rezoned for upscale hotel-condominium projects. The matter was returned to the Planning Commission once a specific plan was submitted.

Disney officials have argued that the dispute is not a referendum on lower-cost housing but on continuing the revitalization plan in the resort.

In a last-ditch attempt to derail the proposal, officials from Disney distributed an “urgent” e-mail to community leaders asking them to “help save the Anaheim resort area” by calling council members or attending Tuesday’s meeting.

Lower-cost-housing advocates say there was a flaw in the 1994 resort plan and that building more hotels would exacerbate the city’s shortage of cheaper housing.

“What better place to have affordable housing than next to the job source itself ... Disneyland,” said Cesar Covarrubias of the Kennedy Commission, an Orange County-based housing advocacy group.

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david.mckibben@latimes.com