City Ordered to Show Street Widening’s Impact : Redevelopment: Judge says Santa Ana must find out exactly how many people Bristol project could displace and demonstrate that decent housing awaits them.

City officials must determine exactly how many people could be displaced by the $355-million Bristol Street project--the largest redevelopment in the city’s history--and must show that decent housing exists for all of them before the project may proceed, a Superior Court judge ruled.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Knox also ordered Santa Ana officials back to the drawing board to explain why so many homes and businesses would be swallowed by the project’s boundaries.

“I’m jumping up and down,” said housing attorney Richard L. Spix, who filed a 1990 lawsuit challenging the project as a land grab that could displace hundreds of people, most of them low-income residents.

City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said Tuesday that the city will do whatever is needed to get the redevelopment project back on track.

“It’s something that we’ll have to do,” he said. “It’s a lot of work and a lot more expense for us.”

At issue is the city’s plan to expand Bristol Street from four lanes to six between Memory Lane and Central Avenue, and revamp more than a dozen commercial areas along the congested strip south of the Garden Grove Freeway.

The City Council approved the project in late 1989 after 2 1/2 years of planning. But a lawsuit filed in 1990 on behalf of a single mother and businessman in the proposed 783-acre project area has stymied city plans.

Knox had ruled in 1991 that the city could go ahead with its project, but the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana argued otherwise. Last month, the city and housing advocates faced off in front of Knox again.

City officials argued that they did not have to explain why each property not affected by the street widening should be included in the project area, because the entire neighborhood is generally blighted from overcrowding and crime. But, in his ruling on Friday, Knox stuck to the higher court’s decision, ordering the city to make a property-by-property assessment.

The city also had argued that there is plenty of housing available in Santa Ana that would be affordable to residents displaced over the years, and submitted a list of potentially available units, including federally subsidized units.

But Knox said the city must go back and more specifically identify who might be displaced--the number of families and their general income--and whether the housing available to them is safe and sanitary and within their means.

That may require the city to survey area residents, Cooper said.

Spix, the housing attorney, praised the judge’s 12-page ruling as “remarkably reasoned.”

“It’s rare that we get a decision that is this thorough in cases like this,” he said. “I appreciate the guidance the court has given us.”

The decision will force city officials to assess the project and the people who will be affected by it if it goes through, he added.

“I really think it’s going to require (city officials) to get out of their cars and quit doing windshield surveys of the area,” Spix said.