The city of Orange became Southern California’s fifth municipality facing housing proposals that could bypass local zoning restrictions because it lacks a state-approved housing plan.
Two preliminary applications landed at City Hall in January seeking to build 576 new townhomes and apartments under the so-called “builder’s remedy.”
The 1990 state provision requires local governments without approved housing plans, or “housing elements,” to approve projects that conflict with local zoning and the general plan, so long as 20% of the homes are for low-income households or all of the homes are for moderate-income households.
“They should call this a builder’s free-for-all instead of a builder’s remedy,” newly elected Orange Mayor Dan Slater said in a text. “This is but one of many knucklehead decisions that our Sacramento representatives have foisted on cities to interfere in long-standing local planning processes.”
One application seeks to build 297 townhomes plus 75 low-income “accessory dwelling units” along the back side of the partly vacant, 50-year-old Village at Orange shopping mall on North Tustin Street. The 14-acre project would take over much of the rear parking lot, a vacant JCPenney building and part of the mall.
The other seeks to build 204 apartments — including 41 low-income units — in six-story buildings on 8 acres along Santiago Creek behind the Chapman Global Medical Center.
An attorney for Stonefield Development, backer of the Santiago Creek apartments, said his client still wants to pursue its original plan to build 158 senior apartments in five, three-story buildings. The new application was filed as “a fallback” plan to lock in their right to develop the property if the senior housing gets denied.
Some residents raised objections to the proposals, saying the new homes are too tall, too massive and too close to existing single-family neighborhoods.
But they’re at a loss about what the city can do to stop…
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