Zoning Is Scheduled on Land to Be Annexed

The City Council on Tuesday is expected to move the city a step closer to annexing about five acres now in the neighboring city of Orange. Orange already has agreed to give up the land.

The council agenda calls for pre-zoning the acreage. City Clerk Kaysene Miller said this is necessary as part of the city’s request to the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission to annex the land.

“The agenda calls for zoning the property as E-4 residential,” Miller said. E-4 zoning, she said, means “small estates,” a home site having a minimum of 20,000 square feet.

Orange and Villa Park last summer agreed to realign part of their borders. That shifting border, in turn, caused the need for some exchanges of land. Villa Park would gain about five acres more land than it loses under the two cities’ agreement.

The proposed border change would be in the vicinity of Cerro Villa Drive and Mesa Drive. Recent realignment of those streets caused the need for changing the cities’ borders.

“It’s a straightening out of a border that used to be zigzagged,” said Villa Park City Manager Fred Maley. He said the undeveloped land Orange has agreed to cede to Villa Park has no direct access to developed areas of Orange.

While the land to be gained by Villa Park is relatively small, it nonetheless would be only the second annexation in the city’s 34-year history. Maley said the only other annexation by Villa Park was about eight years ago.

At its Tuesday meeting, the City Council also is expected to change speed limits on two streets, as recommended in a recent traffic engineering survey.

The survey urged the city to increase the limit from 40 to 45 mph on Meats Avenue between Santiago Boulevard and the north city limits. In addition, the survey said the speed limit on Serrano Avenue between Santiago Boulevard and Nichols Avenue should be reduced from 35 to 30 mph.

The council normally meets on the fourth Tuesday each month, but the December session this year is early because of the Christmas holiday.