Corona Council Imposes Minimum Size on Lots for New Homes

CORONA — City Council members voted unanimously Wednesday night to approve an emergency zoning ordinance that immediately imposes a 7,200-square-foot minimum lot size for new single-family homes.

Their action follows the overwhelming passage by Corona voters of the “Franklin Initiative” to ban smaller residential lots from the city.

But council members who previously had opposed the minimum lot size took the idea beyond the language of Measure H. They extended the minimum to all new single-family homes, regardless of the zoning for the sites.

The Franklin Initiative, which passed 6,222 votes to 3,093, would have applied only to residential areas zoned R-1, City Manager James D. Wheaton said. It would have gone into effect in mid-December.

The 45-day urgency ordinance “broadens the effect” of the minimum lot size and allows the Planning Commission and City Council time to enact a permanent ban on smaller lots, Wheaton said.

Heads Off Challenges

By enacting its own ordinance, rather than letting the Franklin Initiative stand on its own, the City Council has stolen the wind from any legal challenges to the measure, which city attorneys had warned was “technically flawed.”

The only exceptions to the minimum lot size will be those homes for which specific plans, tentative tract maps or development plans already have been approved by the city.

William Franklin, mayor pro tem and the author of the initiative, was the only council member opposed to small lots before the November election. His colleagues and others in the community had argued that the minimum requirement was unnecessarily restrictive and unfair to families trying to buy their first homes and left the city no room to bargain with developers for public amenities.