Placentia Plans a Face-Lift

When the Valencia orange was king in Placentia, when the old train depot was hopping, the city’s downtown thrived.

But that ended almost 30 years ago, when the last of the citrus packing houses was shut down and the depot leveled. Now many residents say the city abandoned the area once it became a largely Latino neighborhood during the 1970s. Despite the efforts of Latino business leaders, part of the neighborhood called Placita Santa Fe remains shabby.

“What we need,” said Lily Herrera, 65, a second-generation Santa Fe resident, “is a good face-lift.”

It may be coming, city officials say.

The City Council has taken the first steps toward a plan it calls Santa Fe Revitalization.

If it comes together, millions of dollars will enter the local economy, mostly private money from developers the city hopes to interest. Initial plans include a new pedestrian plaza that would mean closing Bradford Avenue at the railroad tracks, an added shopping district, and new businesses on the two main intersecting boulevards, Bradford and Santa Fe avenues. The city is negotiating with the owner of the old, sprawling Sunkist packing house on Melrose Street, to convert it into shops.

“We want to give people a reason to shop and stroll,” said City Administrator Robert D’Amato.

The City Council this month approved formation of a 15-member advisory focus group to consider a master plan for the revitalization project, including a theme, before it is written in the fall.

Area residents are generally pleased, but skeptical.

“We’ve heard it before,” said Ed Garcia, who owns a human resources consulting business on Santa Fe Avenue. “We’re waiting to hear someone say when.”

City Councilman Norman Z. Eckenrode understands why some Santa Fe residents hesitate to applaud. In 22 years on the council, he has heard such plans before too.

“I think the difference is, this is the first time we’ve had a majority on the council fully committed to getting the job done,” Eckenrode said.

There’s another force at work to push this plan: Placentia’s train problem.

Close to 100 Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight trains rumble through the city daily. Placentia, with other north Orange County cities, plans a major rail-lowering project that would eliminate traffic back-ups at its nine crossings. It would also eliminate the need for passing trains to sound their horns. Residents protested when the freight line resumed using horns on April 1 for the first time in 25 years. Placentia had been a quiet zone. The railway finally agreed not to blow the whistles when most people are asleep.

For two of those crossings, Melrose Street and Placentia Avenue, the city has received $28 million in federal funds to create underpasses. Both are in the Santa Fe area.

“It doesn’t make sense to spend that kind of money and not improve the community at the same time,” said Councilman Scott P. Brady, who has pushed hardest for the revitalization project.

The plan’s success, suggests Maria Moreno, a former mayor and the last Latino to sit on the council, depends greatly on whether the focus group includes people from the Santa Fe community. Ten will be chosen by the council, one nominated by the Chamber of Commerce, and others will be heads of various city commissions, including the Cultural Arts Commission.

“If the community is involved in the planning,” said Moreno, who lives in the Santa Fe area, “it could certainly be good for us. But if we have no say, it’s going to be unsettling here.”

In the past, she said, the city has approved businesses in Santa Fe without considering residents’ views, which she believes has helped alienate many in the community.

Census figures show that Placentia is about 30% Latino. The heaviest concentration is in Santa Fe--which is almost all Latino. The area, in the city’s southwest corner, is bordered by Chapman Avenue on the north, Orangethorpe Avenue on the south, Placentia Avenue on the west, and Angelina Drive on the east.

The area’s relationship with the City Council has been uneasy at times, and sometimes even contentious.

“When the whites moved out of Santa Fe, so did the city,” said Alfonso Rangell, 74, referring to the gradual demographic changes of the 1960s and ‘70s.

A defining symbol of some residents’ disenchantment was the City Council’s decision last year to move the annual Heritage Days Festival and Parade in October out of the Santa Fe area. A Santa Fe staple since its inception in 1970, the festival is moving to Tri-City Park, in the far north end of the city. The city said it needed more room.

“There are hurt feelings over that, for sure,” said Councilman Eckenrode. “But I think people will see we’re serious about improving that community.”

Garcia and other merchants have organized an Aug. 8 meeting at the Backs Building in Kraemer Park, to discuss the issues related to revitalization. For example, although the city’s charter prevents it from buying property through eminent domain, some business owners and residents still fear they will be forced out. The organizers have invited city officials. Eckenrode said he plans to be there, and would expect other city leaders there as well.

Garcia does endorse the need for change in Santa Fe.

“Have you been here? The place is a toilet,” he said.

Most who work there aren’t that harsh. Mike Mauren, who has run a Bradford Avenue auto body shop for more than 20 years, suggests Santa Fe’s problem is that “it has a stigma of being kind of a sorry neighborhood. But people who come here to shop or eat realize that’s not the case. There’s great potential here. The place is just looking for some direction.”

Arturo Sandoval, who runs his family’s El Farolito restaurant on Bradford Avenue, said most merchants want to see an infusion of shops compatible with what exists now. “I’d love to see us have a bookstore, or a music store,” he said.

What merchants don’t want is to see such extensive redevelopment that Santa Fe loses its family atmosphere.

At the Golden Family Produce grocery on Santa Fe Avenue, for example, residents come not just for groceries, but to use its express service to wire money to relatives in Mexico. Owner Jose Rodriguez, is ambivalent about revitalization. It’s OK, he said, as long as it doesn’t hurt his business.

Herrera, a single mother who worked two jobs to raise five children, hopes that the revitalization will extend beyond the business district: “We need to improve the places where we live too, like better streets. The face-lift should be for the whole community.”