Garden Grove’s Painful Choice: Raze Homes to Boost Tax Base?

On a Garden Grove corner just south of Disneyland, mammoth hotels are springing up amid the palm trees. Embassy Suites. Hyatt Regency Alicante. Crowne Plaza Hotel.

It is hard to distinguish where tourist-haven Anaheim ends and the city once ridiculed as “Garbage Grove” begins.

The construction is just the start of Garden Grove Mayor Bruce Broadwater’s vision for a remade Harbor Boulevard--miles of hotels, restaurants and shops. A Harbor Boulevard that banks on Anaheim’s cash cows--Disneyland and one of the country’s largest convention centers.But to do that, the city might have to raze as many as 500 single-family homes, 300 mobile homes and 120 apartment units, pushing close to 1,000 families from their affordable housing.

Residents have mobilized, hiring consultants and lawyers, holding community meetings and organizing block captains for door-to-door campaigns. Signs in front of the endangered homes proclaim: “United We Stand to Save Our Homes.” Dozens of residents are expected to line up in opposition Tuesday, when the City Council holds a public hearing to consider the redevelopment plan. The vote will come at the following council meeting.

“We’re not taking this stuff laying down,” said resident Manny Ballesteros. “We’re angry. We’re afraid of losing our homes....To take our homes so that a developer can make money--that is totally unacceptable.”

The proposal to convert 195 acres into a redevelopment zone illustrates a national issue often raised but never resolved: Is it right for a cash-strapped city to use redevelopment to stimulate economic growth, and, if so, at what cost to some of its residents? The city Planning Commission, which has approved adding the redevelopment zone, has suggested it be reduced to about 150 acres.

The mayor, called “Bulldozer Broadwater” by foes of the project, feels hard-pressed to come up with alternatives. He calls his city “the hole in the doughnut.”

Of 34 cities in Orange County, Garden Grove is the second poorest, when measured by revenue per capita, Broadwater said. It is a working-class, largely residential city of about 165,000.

The city “doesn’t have anything,” he said. “It doesn’t have a Disneyland or a Westminster Mall or a South Coast Plaza. Everyone else around us has something.... We have to look at reality. This city has to look at what it’s been given.”

And what it’s been given is a neighboring city with a major tourist draw.

In the last few years, Garden Grove officials have cut deals with developers to make way for 2,000 hotel rooms--in six new hotels and a major renovation to the Hilton. Three more hotels are planned, said Matt Fertal, assistant city manager.

City officials gave away the land, valued at $32 million, and are giving developers about $8,000 per hotel room in tax revenue.

In exchange, they expect to gain about $6 million annually from the new hotels, money that will go straight to the general fund, Fertal said.

“I think it could be hotels all the way from the Fullerton city line to the 22 Freeway,” Broadwater said.

City officials say it could be years before residents lose their homes. And if it happens, the city promises to use compassion in relocating residents, a pledge that rings hollow with residents, especially those who don’t want to move.

They wonder how the city plans to measure the fair market value of their homes. Some said they will stop planned upgrades and additions. Others said they would rather move now than live under a threat.

Bob and Mary Ann Walker plan to fight.

Bob stands in his sprawling backyard--a backyard so big he can set up a volleyball net on summer nights when his extended family gathers for barbecues.

He proudly gives a tour of the home office he built himself, his corn patch, his garden overflowing with ripe zucchini, bell peppers, tomatoes and blackberries. He even has a pen where his chickens yield about four eggs a day.

When he bought this house 25 years ago, it was an 1,100-square-foot fixer-upper. Now, it’s 3,000 square feet and full of priceless family memories. It is the only home he has ever owned.

“The city doesn’t have enough money,” Walker said. “You cannot buy the memories and the sweat my wife and I put into this house. We did not buy this house to invest, sell and make a profit. We bought it to raise a family and retire.”

Walker is not opposed to redevelopment. If the city were going to build a freeway, for example, he might understand. But this plan, he said, is merely for profit.

At a recent community meeting attended by more than 100 residents, redevelopment watchdog and Supervisor-elect Chris Norby fired up the crowd.

“All you want is the one thing all Americans have a right to, and that is to be left alone,” said Norby, president of Municipal Officials for Redevelopment Reform. “Fight for your right and you will win.”

Councilman Mark Leyes, who has yet to reveal how he will vote, said this decision will determine whether the city is willing to shift directions.

“It’s a choice. It’s a proposal to change our strategy in redevelopment--to go to economic development rather than redevelopment,” Leyes said. “It’s almost like if we could go back in time and wipe the slate clean, we could reserve these areas for tourist/commercial.”

Until now, the city has planned in bits and chunks. It has moved a few businesses here, a mobile home park there to make way for commercial development, but the current proposal eclipses those previous ventures.

“I suppose that’s where my heartburn comes from,” Leyes said. “I’m not sure it’s a good fit for Garden Grove for us to be that ambitious.”

Residents in the proposed redevelopment zone believe their city’s doing just fine as it is. They would like a Borders or a Nordstrom or a few more restaurants, but say they resent the idea that they’re nothing more than a doughnut hole in Orange County.

“I go to work,” said resident Peggy Bergin. “I’m not a celebrity. I’m a mother of four kids. I’ve been making house payments for 25 years.... How do we make a life decision with something like this hanging over our heads?”