“They are not going to pursue it,” [Anaheim City Council Member Lucille] Kring said. “Why should we go through the expense of an election?”
I just saw something interesting in The Register this morning. Apparently after many months of controversy and city council battles, Anaheim may be ready to give up housing in the resort district. According to Council Member Kring, the city received a letter from SunCal, the company that’s been looking to redevelop what is now a mobile home park in the resort district, that they will no longer will pay to defend against the lawsuit against its housing plans. Disney has opposed this effort to place housing near its theme parks, and it has taken the city to court to stop the housing project.
So what now? This housing project included some badly needed affordable housing units, so affordable housing advocates were pushing hard to make more homes available to Anaheim’s working families. But then again, since this housing project was located in the “Resort District”, an area slated for a possible third Disney theme park and new timeshare hotel units, Disney has been fighting to stop this project via lawsuits and a ballot initiative to prevent the city council from making any changes to the resort district’s master plan. And then, of course, there was SunCal, the company that would have made millions off this new housing project. Now for several months, Anaheim residents have witnessed this epic battle firsthand. But now, it looks like SunCal and the city may be ready to call this whole thing quits.
So what do YOU think about this latest twist in the story of SunCal v. Disney? Is this thing really coming to an end? Has Disney won? Have working families in need of housing lost? Was SunCal wrong to ever pursue housing in this area in the first case? Go ahead and have your say.
This was never about affordable housing. That was the pretty penny that SunCal dangled in front of some councilmembers. This project was a net “LOSS” of affordable units!
This project was always about a developer who wanted to shortcut procedures and build luxury condos next to Disney parks, thats it! These would be owned by corporations to house guests and big wigs on vacations in the Resort District. The average worker would not have been able to afford one of the 1500 luxury condos. This issue was never about homes for employees of Disney. Paid spinners tried to make this look like a property rights issue, ignoring the fact that the owners approved the establishment of the Resort District in the first place. A district that has returned a financial performance far beyond what was promised.
Anaheim has done a great job in developing affordable units, I believe only second to Irvine in their creation. The city needs to pursue affordable units in the Triangle where zoning and planning offer a more logical location for family units.
We should take the time to thank the Anaheim residents and businesses of the Resort District for a job well done in protecting the financial future for the entire city.
Now that it appears that Suncal might be throwing in the towel, we still need to make sure that this does not happen again to resort zone. The City Council needs to adopt the SOAR Initiative to prevent three people from deciding on the future of the our Resort Zone. In the Old Soviet Union it was called a Troika and we need to prevent another Troika from giving into the whims of a rich developer to line his pockets at the expense of the Anaheim Taxpayers.