2nd Major Anaheim Development Is Up for Approval Today

With one massive Anaheim Hills project already approved, another expected to be accepted today and a third on the way, city officials predict that Anaheim’s population will increase by about 20,000--nearly 10%--in the next decade.

The 600-acre, 2,176-home Oak Hills Ranch goes before the Anaheim City Council for approval this afternoon, a week after an adjacent development, Highlands at Anaheim Hills, with 2,147 homes on 816 acres, got the go-ahead.

The two projects, located north and east of the intersection of Canyon Rim Road and East Serrano Avenue, will bring in about 12,000 people within three to 10 years, according to Joel Fick, the city’s assistant director of planning. These developments will raise Anaheim’s population by 5%.

About a 10% Increase

Another development in the works, the 1,119-home Wallace Ranch, plus continued growth of existing neighborhoods in the Serrano Avenue-Canyon Rim Road area, could push the population increase up to the 20,000 level, “slightly less than 10%,” said Norm Priest, executive director of community development and planning.

“It’s going to bring shifts,” he said. “Political shifts with the new voices, shifts of (city) personnel and equipment. It’s going to affect the whole city.”

Priest predicted that there will be “an influx of young, rising, upper-middle-class families who can afford $150,000-to-$300,000 houses, bringing political voices to an area that had no voices at all before. The shift would be from the center of the city to the city’s wing.”

He indicated that the new residents will represent economic views different from those of the central city.

But despite the major developments in the hills, there has been little opposition voiced by residents there. The only public comment came June 16 in a letter from the executive committee of the Anaheim Hills Citizens Coalition, which urged the City Council to delay a vote until neighboring homeowners could examine proposals more carefully. But no one spoke out the following Tuesday when the council approved the Highlands project.

Now that it has been approved, developers and city officials believe the other developments will encounter few roadblocks. The major sticking points--including fire access, road construction and a plan to make sure the developments pay for themselves--were worked out with Highlands developer Southmark Pacific Corp., Fick said.

No Problems Foreseen

If Oak Hills Ranch developers agree to the same conditions, which they have said they would do, there should be no problems, officials have indicated. The final plans for Wallace Ranch are expected to be submitted to the council in three to six months. Frank Elfend of Elfend & Associates, who negotiated development terms for the Highlands project, also represents Wallace Ranch.

But the opposition’s relative silence doesn’t mean that there is nothing to oppose, said Sonja Grewal, a member of the citizens coalition’s executive committee. When planning to develop the Anaheim Hills, she said, the planning staff did not consider the growth that has occurred outside Anaheim’s city limits in Yorba Linda and Corona.

“I don’t want to be the one to say ‘traffic, traffic, traffic,’ ” she said. “But maybe now is the time to say, ‘Let’s slow down, or let’s stop a while.’ ”

She said that while slow-growth and no-growth policies are gaining support in some parts of Orange County, and an effort is under way countywide to enact a measure to limit growth, the lack of protest from Anaheim Hills residents is peculiar.

Why Are They Silent?

“I wish I could tell you why (residents are silent),” she said. “People just assume things will be done properly, and that they won’t affect their lives.”

Councilman Irv Pickler said the developments will not adversely affect residents’ lives, adding that the city is making sure the developments are self sufficient. He added that the general development plans for the area were drawn with a comprehensive view of the situation in mind, and county government has been consulted.

“When I came to California in 1945, there was no smog, no traffic. It would have been great to say, ‘Stop, I like it the way it is,’ ” he said. “Things like that can’t happen. We need growth.”

Pat Semen, chairman of the North Tustin Municipal Advisory Council, said residents in the area south of Anaheim Hills are concerned about the an increase in traffic. The “pass-through” traffic from Anaheim Hills residents avoiding the Riverside Freeway will have more effect on midcounty streets than on Anaheim Hills’ roads, she predicted.

Anaheim officials do not foresee any major problems resulting from the developments. City Manager William O. Talley said that although the “substantial new area” of homes--most of them single-family dwellings costing $200,000 to $300,000--is far from the city’s center and will be expensive to protect and maintain, the city can handle it.