Since when does a developer get to tell the Fire and Police Departments they’re overreacting about public safety—and then push forward a project anyway? Yet that’s exactly what happened at the Planning Commission Hearing for the ‘Hills Preserve’ Development next to Deer Canyon Park in Anaheim Hills.
This project is one of the most controversial topics in Anaheim Hills, sparking intense opposition from thousands of residents against a 500-apartment development planned for Santa Ana Canyon Road. Cal Fire has defined the area as a High-Fire-Severity Zone, meaning that laws and regulations are meant to limit development there, especially due to evacuation risks.
The proposed location has only one way out: Santa Ana Canyon Road, which also serves as the primary evacuation route for the east side of Anaheim. In past fires, this route has been clogged with gridlocked traffic, with some homes even catching fire. The community’s concern is that this development will only worsen the bottleneck, trapping people in gridlock and putting those in higher-risk areas at greater peril as new vehicles flood an already overwhelmed road system.
Residents argue the “Know Your Way” evacuation plan is fundamentally flawed. For instance, the city suggests blocking all incoming traffic to make it one-way-out, yet they offer no viable strategy for evacuating children, the elderly, or non-drivers. Their proposed solution is that residents assign a neighbor who doesn’t work to help evacuate their block.
The traffic and evacuation assessment here is even more misleading than what Disneyland Forward presented earlier this year. The traffic study in the Hills was conducted on June 7, 2022, just before Canyon High School’s graduation. Private schools, preschools, and community colleges were already out for the summer. Although the study claims to be “during the school year,” it clearly was not. This garbage in has led to garbage out.
The worst part is that the emergency evacuation study shows a significant increase in evacuation time. To minimize this impact down to zero, the developer proposed that residents simply won’t evacuate. Their claim? Residents will “stay put” to let others leave first. If a fire were raging in the canyon, sure, people would evacuate—but in the other scenarios the study covers, residents are assumed to stay in their rooms, thus not impacting traffic. Shockingly, the Planning Commission accepted this and voted it as a “finding of fact”—a solution deemed worthy of approval.
This is a dangerous precedent. We have a developer presenting a hypothetical, untested safety plan that relies on local police to enforce. According to the Findings of Fact document posted to the City Council Agenda, Anaheim PD would block people from leaving. In my view, this sounds like an unofficial version of martial law. How do you tell over 1,000 people they can’t go to the beach, grocery store, or leave a smoke-filled canyon so others in District 6 can evacuate first? In real emergencies, people don’t always follow directions. When current residents voice concerns about this plan, they’re accused of being over-dramatic or anti-housing. Perhaps this gaslighting marks the start of a new era where developers call all the shots in Anaheim.
If a developer can propose theoretical safety measures and expect the city’s police and fire departments to enforce them, where does this end? Could other developers argue that residents won’t leave their homes either, thus having no impact on the community? For example, SALT Development claimed a 4.5% traffic mitigation credit, stating that future residents would be permitted to work from home. SALT is building an apartment complex, yet no other such project has been allowed this credit. An unrelated Riverside County developer was denied this same credit, with a traffic report clarifying why it didn’t apply. In Anaheim, though, it does. The only other development allowed this reduction is Disney, but Disney does control their employees’ schedules—SALT does not control tenants’ work or their choice to flee a dangerous situation.
At what point does Anaheim stop letting the tail wag the dog? This could be the beginning. While council members and the city have some liability protection, they’re not exempt from negligence—particularly when city staff, Anaheim PD, and Anaheim FD publicly advise against the project. Planning Commission Chair Lucille Kring voted to ignore this guidance, saying she’d PRAY DAILY for residents’ safety. Not exactly fact-finding. Taxpayers from all six districts will ultimately bear the cost for settlements if poor decisions lead to damages. Maui County and others had to pay $4 billion in lawsuits for similar liabilities. How many fire stations would Anaheim need to mortgage to cover that? Time will tell…
Kring will “pray daily!“
[Editor’s Note: The Council will vote on this tomorrow, Tuesday October 29, (a week before Election Day, which only really affects one of them.) Will they overrule the Planning Commission’s shocking approval of this project earlier this month, which defied the warnings of staff, fire, police, and even Ted White? As Hannah has not mentioned, this project’s lobbyist is Tom Daly, former Anaheim Mayor and Assemblyman – how omnipotent is he still?]
I love the detail of Lucille Kring (inexplicably & bizarrely still leading the Planning Commission, well, because District 1’s Jose Diaz didn’t know anybody in his own district to appoint) telling Hills residents “I’ll pray for you every day” while voting to put them in harm’s way.
Don’t you love it when people use their religiosity as a way to weasel out of using logic or morality? “Thoughts and prayers.”
But this is Lucille, so this goes into a long list of Kring-isms:
“Saved us the cost of a trial!”
“This isn’t the City of Kindness anymore!”
“Sure I lied (in the 2012 election) but it wasn’t written in my campaign literature!”
What else has there been?
This thing is an absolute monstrosity. The pitch everyone’s been getting is pure Orwellian crap. It’s hard to believe it could pass any sort of decent PC.
Questions for Hannah:
What entitlements does the project need?
What was the vote at the Planning Commission?
Who are the Planning Commissioners and how did they vote?
I know some of that. Hannah had a hard time writing their first OJB article because there was just so much to say about this.
Reminder to everyone – Council vote on this is TOMORROW.
I know these things: When the developer learned that the staff was recommending against this, they pulled out the big Hail Mary threat – if they didn’t get this project THEIR WAY, they will use “builder’s remedy” and instead build an entire SHITLOAD of AFFORDABLE HOUSING there instead. Which they know nobody up there wants, and neither does the Council. But they know they COULD do that and threaten that because ANAHEIM IS SO FAR BEHIND on our state affordable housing goals. (Of course the project as approved so far has ZERO affordable; instead the developers will have to donate something to our housing trust fund.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Builder%27s_remedy
I wasn’t at the PC meeting, just heard reports about it, don’t remember if it was unanimous. But I did hear that the young, enigmatic, always-grinning commissioner Luis Andres Perez (whose votes we usually agree with) took the lead in pushing this through, even sweetening the deal somehow for the developer. Some joked that that made sense for Luis to want to build in fire-hazard areas, as he works for a union that makes sprinklers.
I’m hoping Marc Herbert and others get on and add some other facts, Marc knows everything.
I was just told that the developer’s threat to use Builder’s Remedy was an empty one (kabuki?) as the state won’t even allow affordable housing in a hazardous area like Deer Canyon.
So there’s that too.
there is no public transit. it is a 1 hour walk to the closest bus PLUS 3 hours of bus transfers to get to Disney, our largest employer. it would be a full time job just going to work.
Or maybe they will just rent the Developers fancy tesla fleet. I can’t imagine that will be cheap. The developer charges $100 per month for an EV parking spot at their other building… hotel living doesn’t come cheap folks.
It was empty because a protracted lawsuit would have ensued which no developer wants.
But what is the discretionary approvals involved? General Plan Update? Zone changes? Are variances involved? Any of these discretionary things provide ample grounds for project rejection. And then there’s the DDA. What does it say, and what does it do?
The members of the Planning Commission: Chair-Christopher Walker, Lucille Kring, Michelle Lieberman, LuisAndres Perez, Jeanne Tran-Martin, Amelia Castro, and Deirde Kelly. Lieberman+Castro voted no.
The Staff, Fire Chief, and Police were against it. Police and Fire Unions for it.
Perez took the lead in pushing for approval. He advocated for the original proposal; he ignored the developer’s alternative proposal which reduced the original proposal by 6 custom homes. Ironically, he pressed for these 6 homes even after the developer emphasized these 6 home sites were being dropped because of the amount of grading that was required.
A couple hundred Hills residents attended.
SALT developer threatened to use the “builder remedy” is his 500 unit project was denied. His fallback proposal was to build 1200 houses on the site which would have a larger fooprint than his 500 unit high-rise. Developer didn’t address how he was going to build the 240 affordable units that would be a requirement of the builder’s remedy. The state Housing element prohibits affordable sites from being located in High Fire Zones like Anaheim Hills. These affordable units would have to be built elsewhere in Anaheim.
Perez was the Political Director for UA Plumbers&Steamfitters Local 582. He is no longer. Currently he works on Assemblyman Valencia’s staff.
Bottomline- The last time there was a fire in the Hills in 2017, it took over 3 hours to evacuate. That one was not a major fire. Not clear on what entitlements were involved.
According to Ted White’s public calendar, he met in Sept. with Curt Pringle to discuss a potential project at the Saddle Club in Anaheim Hills.
The vote was 4 in favor, 2 against at the Planning Commission. Andres-Perez shocked everyone ( there is opposition), with the motion for a favorable vote. Coming in at 10:30 pm, after 5.5 hours of overwhelmingly negative information from the Nick Taylor, Fire & Safety leaders and homeowners. The meeting ended at 11 pm. The significant negative findings of the report, were ALL casually over-ridden, by referencing the EIR as a factual proof-source.
The developer has been working hard to get letters from Anaheim residents to “Open Deer Park” and “Enhance Deer Park” claiming the park has been closed for 20 years. Have you received these? What they didn’t want you to know is that TAX PAYERS are paying to open the park. The developer even admits it. They are building a road to the park. That is it. And they expect the city to build a parking lot and improve the park.
Since when do we improve parks that literally no resident asked to be improved?
The most requested Anaheim park amenity?? Soccer fields. The city is spending more than $1MILLION to improve some soccer fields in District 6.
Why are we going to spend millions more to improve a park no REAL resident is asking for which will redirect funds from other neighborhood parks?
If you wanted to go to deer canyon tonight from City Hall, it is the same amount of drive time to go to the existing parking lot as the “proposed” parking lot the city is on the hook to pay for.
I’ll join Lucille in prayer for “builder’s remedy” and 20% affordable. For the Council to reject this monstrosity and protect their constituent’s lives would require heavenly intervention.
There must be an extensive DDA. What are we in Anaheim on the hook for?
And what entitlements is the developer asking for?
That really is a poor spot for a development of that sort. It would be a lot more suited for some kind of regional fire fighting operations center.
What can we do now to try to stop this development? Will it help if we go to today’s meeting at 5:30 at City Hall? Do we need to submit comments in advance? Will the City Council vote tonight to approve or disapprove of this plan? Is it possible that the final vote will be delayed if enough of us show up to oppose it?
Approving it sounds like a death sentence for many residents.
So, this mooncalf was defeated last night (after midnight, huge crowds) 5-2. Guess who voted how? I couldn’t.
Surprise one – the outgoing Jose Diaz was always a NO. Which is a little disappointing to me. One thing you could always say about this cat was he was consistent on TWO things – government should never tell businesses what to do, and ALL BUILDING IS GOOD. Right vote, but where’s your consistency, carnal?
Surprise two was the two YES votes – Carlos Leon, and Norma Kurtz, the only member up for election! Apparently they’ve become “ANY AND ALL HOUSING IS ESSENTIAL” people. A few meetings ago I told myself Carlos was being tongue-in-cheek when he exulted over how WELL we’d been doing this past decade over creating MARKET-RATE HOUSING – far over the state’s mandates (while sucking eggs on affordable) – but I guess Carlos is not a tongue-in-cheek guy.
Norma may have felt attached to the nominal contribution the project would have had to contribute to her Affordable Housing Trust Fund. But I wonder if any of these Hills activists might feel like making a last-minute contribution to Francisco’s campaign?
The developer, SALT Development, is still rattling the “Builders Remedy” sabre. Impotently. I wish I coulda been there to see Tom Daly defeated. I wonder if he looked as furious as Curt Pringle did a few years ago when another huge dangerous development in the Hills (which he was lobbying for) got sunk.
Congratulations to the folks from the Hills, who as usual are much better at getting what they want than us flatlanders. Of course as always they start with two votes as a given – District 6 councilmember and Mayor.
That’s surprising
This is actually the third time this Council has overruled a bad decision from this Planning Commission. Some of these Commissioners gotta go.
Last time I wrote THIS pretty good article:
https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2023/09/cecilia-flores-beats-lucille-krings-planning-commission-and-a-charter-school-goes-down/