Disney Reassures Its Neighbors on Planned Third Anaheim Park

Disney officials said Friday that they would beef up the buffer around a planned third amusement park in Anaheim in response to neighbors’ concerns that the city is giving the entertainment giant a blank check for the 78-acre project.

At the same time, Disney officials said the proposed park is still without a theme or concept and that it could be five years or more before it is built.

“We haven’t even given [the creative team] a blank piece of paper yet,” said Martin A. Sklar, vice chairman and principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering.

City officials have given Walt Disney Co. the go-ahead to begin the application process for the park. And a draft environmental report is due out this fall.

Disney planners are meeting with Anaheim community members to try to smooth concerns about the impact a third park would have on the city.

In a news briefing Friday, Disney officials said they would go well beyond several city requirements for the project. For example, they plan to place strict height restrictions and building requirements on rides and attractions within 300 feet of residential areas, double the distance the city has requested. They also plan to increase landscaping and lower the height of attractions so that residents are not looking up at towering Disney rides or buildings, said Ed Chuchla, director of development for Disney Imagineering.

After the city releases its environmental report, there will be a series of public meetings and ample time for input.

“It’s a long process,” said Doug Moreland, senior vice president of predevelopment for Disney Imagineering, adding that the company is trying to be sensitive to the project’s neighbors.

Disney officials met Thursday with a group of Anaheim homeowners who have been critical of California Adventure and the proposed third park. The group, Anaheim Homeowners for Maintaining Their Environment, has already filed one appeal with the Anaheim City Council, asking that the planning process be slowed until Disney officials provide more specifics.

Disney is “genuinely trying to be considerate about what will be done,” said Steve White, president of the homeowners group. “But they said that their aim is to provide setbacks and basically draw a box and inside that box be allowed to build whatever they want. That’s where we have a problem.”

But all the speculation about what would go inside the 78-acre project is premature, the company said. At one time, Disney officials said they were considering a water park. They have also said the project would likely include hotels as well as a dining, shopping and entertainment center.

If anything is certain, the Disney planners said, it is that ideas and concepts will change along the way.

When developing a park, Sklar said several possibilities are tossed around. The first and second plan--sometimes not even the 10th--rarely end up getting used. Even during early planning phases for Walt Disney World in Florida, Walt Disney said: “Everything in this room is going to change time and time again.”

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Defining the Edge

Disney officials announced Friday that a planned third theme park in Anaheim would have buffer zones that go beyond city requirements designed to protect neighboring housing areas from noise and distractions.

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times