Panel Rejects Plan to Redevelop Bristol

A committee of Santa Ana residents and business owners, after months of meetings and study, Tuesday rejected a plan to redevelop about 900 acres along crowded Bristol Street, the city’s main north-south thoroughfare.

The committee’s role is advisory, but its disapproval changes the number of votes required for City Council adoption of the plan. The council must now approve the plan by at least a 7-5 vote. Had the panel approved, a simple council majority would have sufficed.

The Project Area Committee voted 11 to 3 against the plan, which outlines goals and objectives of the redevelopment project while limiting some redevelopment activities.

The redevelopment project area stretches from Central Avenue on the south to 20th Street on the north and includes several blocks that run east to west in the areas of First Street and 17th Street. Rancho Santiago College, Mater Dei High School and the Honer Plaza shopping center are included.

Bristol, which bisects the city, is filled with varied commercial and residential buildings, some of them new but others substandard and unsightly. Its traffic slows to a crawl during commute hours.

Redevelopment of the Bristol Corridor would enable the city to spend about $167 million to improve the area. Bristol would be widened from four to six lanes; new storm drains, medians, traffic signals and lights would be built.

“I cannot in my wildest imagination believe that our redevelopment laws were ever passed with the intention of providing a creative funding method for the widening of a city street,” committee chairman Jim Lowman said during Tuesday’s meeting.

“I see this as a utilitarian project area,” said Bob Hoffman, a real estate manager with the city’s Community Development Department. “There are no grand redevelopment projects out there. But this is a source of funds for a tremendous amount of improvements that are needed, . . . and it would be a shame if . . . the city does not take advantage of redevelopment to capture those funds.”

Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem John Acosta held out hope before the committee’s vote that the project could go forward regardless of the committee’s decision. “I would hope that we could address some of (the committee’s) concerns . . . in the public hearing process,” he said. “I shudder to think they would not approve it. . . . This Bristol Street widening is needed very desperately.”