The San Clemente City Council is asking California officials to consider the state-owned Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa for a temporary housing solution for homeless people in South Orange County cities, even though Costa Mesa is underway with a plan to develop housing at the shuttered campus.
The center, located on 90 acres and surrounded by neighborhoods, hotels and restaurants on Harbor Boulevard, has been closed since 2016. About 15% of the property is being used to house a state Office of Emergency Services, but the rest is considered surplus. In 2020, the center, which includes a large facility with many rooms with beds, bathrooms and kitchen facilities, was briefly used to triage COVID-19 patients during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The center provides a unique opportunity of an existing governmental structure that could be efficiently remodeled to address one of the most critical issues facing the county at the current time,” San Clemente’s letter to the state says. “The development of the property should be restricted to providing temporary supportive housing for those facing the challenge of homelessness.
“Allowing almost 100 acres of state-owned property to benefit a single community in the county that can be used to satisfy their Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) allocation is very inequitable to the other communities,” the council’s letter adds. “At the very least, the site’s development should reduce the RHNA allocation of each city in the county.”
California cities have been each given allocations of new homes – serving a variety of income levels – to plan for in the next decade to help address housing needs. Many have chaffed at the size of their allocation.
The idea to pen the letter came from San Clemente City Councilman Steve Knoblock, who said it seems only obvious to use the property in such a way that could benefit cities from Fullerton to San Clemente.
“It’s 14 to 15 miles…
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