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Anaheim officials denied a nearly 500 luxury apartment development in Deer Canyon after pushback from nearby residents over concerns it will increase fire evacuation times in a wildfire hazard zone.
The city council’s decision also comes after city staff – including the fire chief – recommended denying the project.
It’s a move that SALT Development, the developers, have threatened would lead them to force even more homes in the area without city approval through a state law known as Builder’s Remedy.
A host of nearby residents have been raising concerns that the proposal would increase evacuation times and increase fire risk in an area the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention has deemed a very high fire hazard severity zone.
They also say it will endanger wildlife, increase noise pollution and worsen nearby traffic.
Proponents of the project – including the developer and local labor union representatives – argue the city is in desperate need of housing amid a statewide crisis and the hills need to do their part to meet the city’s state mandated housing needs.
The developer also says the project will make the area more resilient to fires.
[Read: Anaheim Considers Nearly 500 New Apartments in Wildfire Prone Hills]
Early into Wednesday morning, officials voted 5-2 to deny the development after over three hours and half of public comments mainly against the proposal. Councilmembers Carlos Leon and Norma Campos Kurtz were the dissenting votes.
Councilwoman Natalie Meeks, who represents Anaheim Hills, said the fear experienced by residents in a fire evacuation is real and there other opportunities for housing in Anaheim Hills
“Safety needs to be our highest priority,” she said “It’s not the right place. It’s a severe fire hazard zone, and you can’t put that many people there and it really is only one way out.”
Mayor Ashleign Aitken, who also lives in Anaheim Hills, said that her part of town is not anti-housing, but residents’ fire safety concerns are not negligible.
“If our own team and our own staff that has decades and decades of combined experience are hesitant that this project can be built safely and can be delivered in a way that doesn’t further impact our community – I don’t know how I can ignore that and approve this project,” she said.
Councilman Stephen Faessel, who previously received thousands of dollars in campaign support from SALT executives, also said he would not support the project because city staff didn’t recommend the project.
Leon said the West Anaheim district he represents is already home to a lot of big apartment complexes and appreciated the project had mitigation measures for wildfires.
“There’s no question for me that we need additional housing,” he said.
Kurtz, who is up for reelection, said neighborhoods in Anaheim are changing and she has asked state legislators about the impacts of housing developments.
“What their response was, if you have lived in a neighborhood more than eight years, wherever you are in the state, expect it to change, and laws coming from Sacramento continue to drive that change,” she said.
Kurtz served as district director for former California Assemblymember Tom Daly – now a lobbyist for SALT Development.
Brian Hobbs, president and co-founder of SALT Development, defended the project at the meeting, arguing that the project would make the area more resilient to wildfires and residents’ concerns about increased evacuation times were not based on fact.
“The opponents are passionate and organized and have killed every project proposed in Anaheim Hills since forever, no matter how good or needed the project was. Acquiescence to this is what has put us even further into the housing crisis” he said at the meeting.
Hobbs and SALT’s attorneys have previously informed the city that they would move forward with what is called a builder’s remedy application for a denser project in the same location.
Builder’s remedy applications allow developers to ignore certain zoning and move forward with a residential development without city approval if 20% of the homes in the project are affordable and if the city doesn’t have a housing plan certified by the state like in Anaheim.
The builder’s remedy proposal would include 1,280 homes and at least 250 of them would be affordable units.
Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava said the builder’s remedy application was a threat to the city.
“When you say, if we don’t approve it as a council, you’ll then apply to the state to tie our hands and get a builder’s remedy, then you’re going to increase your project from 500 to 1,200 because it doesn’t pencil out. That’s a threat,” she said.
“I don’t really take kindly to threats.”
Wildfire Country & A Need For Housing
Tuesday’s council meeting comes weeks after firefighters battled the Airport Fire that started in Trabuco Canyon and burned over 23,000 acres – and years after the Canyon Fire 2 forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes and burned over 9,000 acres.
It also comes amid efforts by Anaheim officials to spur the development of affordable homes in a city that has long struggled to produce housing for low-income families as state officials increase pressure on cities across the state to address California’s housing shortage.
[Read: Anaheim Inches Closer to Mandating Affordable Housing]
An environmental impact report states the project would have increased evacuation times in the area – which are already sitting at more than three hours before development of the proposal.
It also states that project design features would reduce fire risk, increase emergency access and increase wildfire resilience.
On Tuesday, Anaheim Fire Chief Pat Russell reiterated that the high density of the project and the “complexities of the wildfire evacuations” was why the fire department didn’t support the project but added there would be benefits to it too.
“Fire is not opposed to development in the Anaheim Hills,” Russell said.
Residents & Unions Sound Off on Proposed Deer Canyon Project
At Tuesday’s meeting, residents spoke for over three hours and half – a majority of whom raised safety concerns about the project increasing evacuation times and putting current and future potential residents’ lives at risk in a wildfire hazard zone.
“The building of this monstrosity endangers our safety and crushes that peaceful, tranquil and calm feeling that we specifically moved to Anaheim Hills for,” said Jennifer Skosveth, a resident and emergency room nurse.
“It took residents hours to evacuate our streets during the last fires, and the addition of these hundreds of cars and people would be the kiss of death.”
Some residents, like Joni Gaynor, shared their own experiences and struggles evacuating the hills in past fires and some pointed to the consequences of other fires like the 2018 Paradise Fire in Butte County and the 2023 Lahaina Fire in Hawaii.
They argue that a future fire in the area is inevitable and said there’s only one way out of the area – Santa Ana Canyon Road.
“We had to park in the Target shopping center and pray we would not burn to death or die of smoke,” Gaynor said about her evacuation experience.
“Every time the wind blows, we are fearful that we will have to evacuate. Most of us have a to go box ready to evacuate.”
Some residents also said they understand the need for housing and their opposition to the project wasn’t because they were opposed to new developments in Anaheim Hills, just the location.
Representatives from the Los Angeles/Orange County Building Trades Council spoke in favor of the project, arguing it was necessary to help address the need for housing in California.
Ernesto Medrano, executive secretary of the building trades council, said it’s time for Anaheim Hills to shoulder more housing developments.
“I got to say something in terms of the issue of housing. It is a national crisis. It is a state crisis, and it is a local crisis, and I urge you to take ownership of this issue,” he said. “It is time that district six steps up, owns it and builds housing for folks there.”
Labor union representatives also praised the proposal and the developer for planning to use local union workers to build the proposal in a project labor agreement.
Chip Ahlswede, a spokesman for the OC Apartment Association, said at the meeting if the city officials don’t address housing needs in Anaheim, state officials will.
“If we want a situation where we have the state coming down and telling the City of Anaheim what will be built, then by all means, continue to push away the people that are trying to solve the housing crisis in this state.”
Editor’s note: Ashleigh Aitken’s father, Wylie Aitken, chairs Voice of OC’s board of directors.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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