Low-Cost Housing Plan in Resort Area Gets Anaheim’s Initial OK

Two months ago, a large, low-cost housing project in Anaheim’s resort district appeared doomed. Mayor Curt Pringle favored something more upscale, a combination hotel-condominium project. City planners agreed, saying low-cost housing that close to the Disney theme parks was a poor idea.

But at the end of a lengthy and contentious meeting Tuesday night, the City Council voted 4 to 1 to pave the way for 200 rental units and 1,300 condominiums just inside the resort district.

Before the vote, Councilman Harry Sidhu asked the city attorney to investigate why a city-commissioned report appeared to discriminate against the project. He and other council members said they were troubled that the 2005 report initially found residences appropriate for the resort district, then -- in another version a month later -- concluded otherwise.

“The main focus of the report changed completely,” Sidhu said in an interview Wednesday. “I want to know: Who are the outside forces behind this?”

Some council members wondered aloud at the meeting why city staff made the report available to another developer within the resort district, but not to SunCal Cos., which had proposed building the low-cost units.

“All this is very disturbing,” Sidhu said. “Based on what I’ve seen, I can no longer be 100% trusting of what is going on with these reports.”

Councilmen Richard Chavez and Bob Hernandez said at the meeting that they were also troubled by the shift in the report’s conclusion and asked Planning Director Sheri Vander Dussen to explain.

“I’m seeing a disparity in treatment here with different developers,” Chavez said.

But Vander Dussen downplayed the significance of the report, prepared by Economic & Planning Systems, consultants with offices in Berkeley, Sacramento and Denver.

“The study isn’t relevant,” Vander Dussen said. “If the council wants to make a policy-level decision to change the resort zoning, you don’t need a market study to justify that.”

After the council’s repeated attempts to press Vander Dussen for answers, Pringle lashed out at his colleagues. “It’s very strange to have members of the council call into question the staff’s integrity,” he said.

After council members moved past their inquiries into the report’s authenticity, they voiced support for the project, which would replace about 300 mobile homes.

“There are affordable units there now with the two mobile home parks,” Sidhu said Wednesday. “If a developer wants to come in and provide similar units without subsidies from the city or the state, I welcome it. People living there will be walking distance to Disneyland and all those hotels nearby.”

Chavez, a longtime advocate of low-cost housing, said Wednesday that he was pleased the project won near-unanimous support. “This will help fill the need for housing as the city continues to grow,” he said. “It was a strong message that the majority of the council is willing to go the extra mile.”

SunCal’s formal proposal must receive planning and permit approvals before it returns to the City Council for a final vote. Rents and sales prices of the units have not been determined.

Pringle, who cast the sole dissenting vote, said at the meeting that residential development would “weaken” the nearby Platinum Triangle, a planned 9,500-unit urban village of lofts, restaurants and shops near the city’s sports venues. No low-cost units are envisioned for that area.

“By approving this, we are creating a direct competitor to the units we have approved,” he said. “People have spent a fortune in a district where we’ve said we want to maximize residential use. I hope every single one of the builders invested in the Platinum Triangle doesn’t think we are running away from them.”

In moving forward with the project, the council also approved zoning within the resort district that gives developers the option of building luxury hotel-condo projects in the mold of the Omni San Diego Hotel in that city’s Gaslamp Quarter.