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BREA : Birch Hills Project Hearing Is Postponed

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The Planning Commission has continued a public hearing until April 11 on the Birch Hills residential and commercial project. The extra time will allow city staff and the applicant, Unocal Land & Development Co., to sort out details for a development agreement.

The city must approve zoning changes and an environmental impact report by Unocal on its large-scale project along Imperial Highway west of Kraemer Boulevard.

At a commission hearing last week, some Brea residents said the Birch Hills project should be scaled back. They also called for inclusion of a new elementary school and further steps to lessen traffic and noise.

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Unocal is hoping to break ground this summer on the first phase of Birch Hills, a 60-acre commercial retail center. Designed in an Italian Renaissance style with columns and archways, the center would feature an ice skating rink, stores and restaurants.

The site was occupied by Unocal’s demolished Collier Plant, which produced nitrogen-based fertilizer for nearly 40 years before closing in 1991. It includes a portion of the 18-hole Birch Hills Golf Course, which would be reconfigured so it could remain open during this phase of the project.

Planned for an area north of the commercial retail center are 363 large, single-family homes and a community park. Project manager Robert Schrag said it would probably be seven to 10 years before construction gets underway on this phase of the Birch Hills development.

The homes would not be built until Unocal opens a new golf course in the Brea area to replace the Birch Hills course, Schrag said.

In the nearer term, Unocal hopes to start construction in mid-1996 on a gated community of 112 affordably priced single-family homes. These two- to four-bedroom units would be built on a 15-acre site at Imperial Highway and Placentia Avenue that is now part of the Imperial Golf Course.

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