ANAHEIM : Judge Backs City’s Revitalization Plan for Resort Area

A judge this week rejected four lawsuits that had attempted to derail the city’s highly touted $172.5-million revitalization plan for the Disneyland area.

The city of Garden Grove, Anaheim City School District, Anaheim Union High School District and Homeowners Maintaining Their Environment had filed the lawsuits, contending that the city’s environmental impact reports do not comply with state guidelines and that the plan would overburden school and street capacities, diminish nearby property values and erode air quality.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert M. O’Brien rejected the lawsuits Monday, ruling that the city’s environmental impact reports had met all requirements.

Anaheim Deputy City Manager Tom Wood said the judge’s decision “reaffirms the credibility of our thorough and extensive planning and review process.”

City officials maintained in court that their analysis of traffic, housing and other related issues was comprehensive.

The city’s “Anaheim Resort” plan is intended to eliminate urban blight around Disneyland over a five-year period by adding lush landscaping, burying overhead cables, widening streets and replacing neon signs.

The face lift was to go hand-in-hand with Walt Disney Co.’s plans to build a $3-billion resort next to Disneyland--plans that have been shelved in favor of a less ambitious project or one that will be built incrementally.

Disney officials have not yet announced the scope of the latest project. City officials say that regardless of what is built, the improvements are critical in keeping Anaheim a magnet for tourist and convention business.

John Brown, a Riverside-based attorney who represented both school districts in the lawsuit, said Thursday that the city is moving forward with the revitalization despite the negative effects he said it will have on schools.

“I don’t think that any city, particularly in Southern California, can be a truly great city when it turns its back on public schools,” he said.

Steve White, HOME vice president, said the homeowner group has “philosophical objections” in addition to traffic concerns.

“Disney can afford to clean up the area itself,” White said. “It’s absolutely ludicrous for the city to be moving forward and spending that kind of money.”