BREA

It’s a new experience for Najam Ansari to work at a gas station adorned with a bronze sculpture, landscaped trees and bushes that are carefully maintained every other week. But then, he hadn’t worked in Brea until about a year ago.

The Lambert Road station is surrounded by industrial businesses, which are usually not known for their appearance, artwork or tree-lined thoroughfares. But city officials have raised the bar for businesses on Lambert, which are held to what planning commissioners call “the Brea standard.”

When an application for a new business comes before the city, the members of the city’s Planning Commission have to be satisfied before any future customers. Major or complex decisions like new developments and zone changes are usually passed on to the City Council.