Residents Cross City Limits to Protest Project

About 50 Buena Park residents walked into City Hall Tuesday armed with photos of a parcel scheduled for development next to their homes. But the City Hall was in Anaheim.

The proposed 50-unit apartment complex would be located on the border between Anaheim and Buena Park. Anaheim’s Planning Commission approved the project, in the 200 block of North Western Avenue, Aug. 18. The Buena Park residents were appealing that decision Tuesday, complaining that it has too many apartments for a 1.4-acre site.

The Anaheim council postponed a decision to give both sides a month to work on a compromise.

Steve Worrell, a Buena Park resident of one of the cul-de-sac homes abutting the project, said that he and his neighbors could live with the apartment complex if it had 25 units instead of 50. He added, however, that the residents were willing to negotiate.

“Twenty-five is our number. Fifty is his number. I’m sure we can find a happy medium,” Worrell said.

Developer Hugh A. Vazquez, president of Anaheim-based Young Lion Development, said after the meeting that he is open to the idea of fewer units. “There’s nothing set in concrete,” Vazquez added.

Anaheim Councilman Ben Bay said he did not blame the Buena Park residents for being upset with the proposal. If a developer proposed a similar project, which includes 2 1/2-story buildings and represents a density of 36 units per acre, he, too, would be “raising Cain and pounding on the table,” Bay said.