Coad Seeks to Revitalize Neighborhoods

The tired-out neighborhoods and strip malls in the county’s forgotten unincorporated pockets have captured the imagination of Supervisor Cynthia P. Coad.

The first-term supervisor is leading a push to revitalize--mostly with private dollars--the sagging neighborhoods. In an effort to come up with something concrete, Coad has targeted a Brookhurst Street strip mall and a nearby neighborhood, both plunked in an unincorporated area in the middle of Anaheim.

“I’m not talking about eminent domain, but having a developer buy into an area to help fix it up,” Coad said.

The concern is that many neighborhoods in dozens of unincorporated areas have been ignored, especially after the county’s 1994 bankruptcy, she said. Some are badly in need of such basics as curbs, sidewalks and code enforcement for illegally parked cars.

Strip malls that stretch across city and county lines are another problem, she said. City redevelopment must be consistent with any proposed by the county. Otherwise, an architectural hodgepodge could result at a cost of millions of dollars, she warned.

If she can somehow encourage private interests to dust off and upgrade the areas in Anaheim, Coad said they could serve as models for similar county islands.

The supervisor also met with Henry Cisneros, the former Housing and Urban Development secretary who now is chief executive of American CityVista, a Texas-based national housing venture. CityVista, which has completed projects in San Antonio and Denver, zeros in on “in-fill” areas in metropolitan centers and puts up high-density housing.

While Cisneros’ group concentrates on buying and developing open patches of land--not existing neighborhoods--he was impressed enough with Coad’s pitch that he had a CityVista official tour the unincorporated pocket in Anaheim. That tour whetted Cisneros’ interest in Orange County, although not necessarily in the Anaheim areas she pointed him toward.

The strip mall, choked with signs advertising everything from a pawn shop to a cocktail lounge, is unremarkable, not unlike a hundred others.

And the houses along nearby Perdido Street hardly seem in decay. The homes are stucco--older but neat--and come with nicely landscaped yards. But Coad points out that some of the Perdido homes have become rentals and, upon closer inspection, are badly in need of improvement.

“The homes on Perdido are not as bad as some other areas of the county,” Coad said. “But the more rentals [you have], the more chance you have of a neighborhood going downhill.”

A neighborhood improvement program under the county’s Housing and Community Development agency has taken root in the Perdido neighborhood and provided about $46,000 in low-interest loans and grants for new roofs, driveways, landscaping, paint and other improvements.

Tim Clark and other Perdido residents said they are grateful for the county’s help but are happy with the way things are, especially if the improvements were to lead to city annexation.

“We have sheriffs for law enforcement, and now street sweepers too,” Clark said. “But I prefer remaining unincorporated. I’m happy with all the services we’ve got.”

Mark Alvarez, CityVista’s director of advance planning in Los Angeles who toured the neighborhood at Cisneros’ request, said Orange County has areas that meet the group’s criteria.

“For now, we’re just talking with the supervisor. We’re very new to Orange County but we think it’s an exciting area for us,” Alvarez said.

For the most part, Cisneros’ organization likes to take on larger chunks of land, 10 to 15 acres, and property that is open. For that reason, Cisneros said he’s interested in applying to take on a housing project at the former Tustin Marine air base.

“We hope to be among the bidders for the Tustin air base and also we’re interested in the Irvine-Tustin area,” Cisneros said.

American CityVista is jointly financed by Westwood-based Kaufman and Broad Home Corp. and Cisneros. The company will find sites and plan the tracts as well as buy the land and build the homes.

But the group will not go into an established neighborhood--such as the Perdido area--and move out residents, Cisneros said.

“We’re finding all kinds of public land, old school sites or just open space in various communities in the 10- to 15-acre range allowing us to build 80 to 120 homes,” he said.

The county is in need of housing to keep pace with population growth. There is an estimated shortage of 22,687 housing units in the unincorporated areas alone and a total of 75,500 including the cities, according to a Southern California Assn. of Governments’ housing needs assessments to the year 2005.

As for the strip mall, Coad envisions bringing in a private developer who would buy out property owners and create a housing project just south of Broadway on Brookhurst.

“I would love to see a gated community with clusters of single-family homes with nice green setbacks, privacy walls with vines,” she said. “Some of these buildings are more than 35 years old and you can make the owners happy by getting a fair market value for their property.”

Coad already has the support of the West Anaheim Neighborhood Development Council. Esther Wallace, chairwoman of the neighborhood council, said the group prefers an affordable housing project to replace the strip mall rather than the apartments she believes have inundated the area.