Anaheim housing may be approved

A controversial plan to allow low-cost housing in Anaheim’s resort district has been rejected by city planners. But the City Council, despite strong objections from the Walt Disney Co. and other business leaders, appears inclined to override the decision and move the project forward.

The Planning Commission vote Monday marked the latest in a simmering debate over putting housing in the city’s resort district, a dispute that has pitted housing advocates against the city’s largest employer. Disney has long been concerned about the neighborhood around its amusement parks.

In August, the council paved the way for 225 apartments and 1,275 condominiums just inside the resort district, voting 4 to 1 to permit residential complexes within an area of the resort district that was being rezoned for upscale hotel-condominium projects. The matter was returned to the Planning Commission once a specific plan was submitted.

The council, if it agrees to take up the issue, would have the final say.

“The City Council sent a strong message that it was in support of affordable housing in this area,” said Councilwoman Lorri Galloway. “I have not changed my opinion.”

But the planning commissioners who opposed the Platinum Pointe project Monday said they were concerned with preserving a 13-year-old plan that had revitalized the resort district, more than doubled annual hotel bed tax revenue and accounted for nearly half of the city’s general fund.

“It’s hard enough to come up with a vision,” said Commissioner Gail Eastman. “And the hardest thing to do is stick with that vision.”

A 2005 city-commissioned report concluded that there might not be a market for a hotel on the 26-acre site on Katella Avenue until 2030. But Eastman said it might be worth the wait.

“Twenty-five years go by in a short amount of time,” she said.

Disney officials, who spoke in opposition to the project Tuesday, hailed the commission’s recommendation.

“The whole community created this vision for the resort district in 1994 that is working and working tremendously well,” said Disneyland spokesman Rob Doughty. “There is much more that can be done to finish out the resort area as a nonresidential district.”

Charles Ahlers, president of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor and Convention Bureau, was one of several business leaders and hotel operators who opposed Platinum Pointe.

“The resort district is only 2.2 square miles,” he said. “It would seem there are other areas where residential proposals like this could be developed.”

But officials with SunCal Cos., which proposed the project, argued that low-cost housing is not a new concept in the resort district. They referred to documents showing that as Disneyland’s California Adventure was being planned in the mid-1990s, Disney officials and the city agreed on 500 low-cost units and later modified the deal to a $5-million payment to the city for “affordable housing” in the immediate vicinity of the resort. Disney officials confirmed that payment Tuesday.

Among those supporting the project was Ada Briceno, president of the Unite Here hotel and restaurant workers union that represents about 5,000 laborers, many of whom work in the resort district.

“Many of our members work full time yet cannot afford to live in Anaheim,” Briceno wrote to the Planning Commission. “Others have no choice but to live in overcrowded conditions just to make ends meet.... Although some business leaders oppose building affordable housing in the resort district, we think such opposition is short-sighted.”

Eric Altman, who represents a coalition of labor unions and community groups, said he was disappointed at how the business community treated the SunCal proposal.

“The business community in Anaheim is saying it supports affordable housing, just not in their backyard,” Altman said. “That’s the kind of things NIMBYs in all parts of Orange County have been saying for years. I expected more leadership from Anaheim’s business community.”

david.mckibben@latimes.com