Transformative opportunity or cautionary tale for Santa Ana? – Orange County Register

Rendering showing Related Bristol, a proposed mixed-use development in Santa Ana, CA. The two-block development would include residential apartments, a hotel, senior living units and retail space. If approved, Related California could open the project as early as 2026. (Photo courtesy of Related California)

In a state where the housing shortage and ensuing affordability crisis is at the heart of every problem facing cities today, the city of Santa Ana is at a crossroads. One road leads to more housing—both market-rate and affordable—in the redevelopment of a crumbling shopping plaza into a true mixed-use destination infused with community vision. The other road leads to lawsuits, potential fines, and an apartment building devoid of community support.

The Related Bristol project is stuck in neutral waiting to move on to formal hearings and hopefully approval. This transformative Santa Ana project could offer several thousand apartments, vibrant retail and 13.1 acres of actively programmed open space as the centerpiece of the largest private investment in the city’s 154-year history. Bristol is an up-and-coming mixed-use project reimagining 41 acres now occupied by an aging and outdated shopping center with increasingly free-standing retailers into a model for future housing and sustainable growth on Bristol Street South, in the heart of Orange County. the arts and entertainment district.

Bristol offers much-needed housing and an unprecedented package of economic and community benefits that the developer has volunteered at a time when the city faces a worsening and potentially crippling budget crisis. Sales tax revenue from Related Bristol’s new retail opportunities would provide an ongoing source of revenue to help address a multitude of intersecting issues facing Santa Ana leaders as they work diligently to meet the needs of their residents.

Related Bristol is an opportunity that, by all accounts, should be enthusiastically embraced by Santa Ana’s decision makers.

Yet while other Orange County cities are making strides to solve their own housing and fiscal challenges, Santa Ana is inexplicably failing to move with any urgency on Related Bristol, a $3 billion project dollars once in a generation. If built, Related Bristol will provide the city with an estimated $500 million in new revenue over its first 30 years of operation, which could be spent in the city on all kinds of critical projects and initiatives to serve residents. Bristol will also create 7,500 new jobs and 13.1 acres of on-site programmed public open space in a city sorely lacking parks and playgrounds for the county’s second largest population.

Furthermore, the project’s proposed 3,750 apartments will allow for a significant amount of new low-income subsidized housing, either built on-site or through taxes in exchange to support affordable projects elsewhere in the city. This contribution of both affordable housing and market rate housing would significantly impact the region’s housing shortage, which poses an alarming threat to the county’s economic future and viability. Without an adequate supply of housing in Orange County, workers of all sectors and income levels will continue to drive from greater and greater distances to fill the expanding and coveted job market in Santa Ana and surrounding communities.

For Santa Ana, Related Bristol is exactly the type of development the city envisioned when it studied, received input and ultimately adopted a 2022 General Plan amendment for the South Bristol Street Corridor. Replacing the half-century-old, increasingly vacant retail center and its crumbling asphalt parking lot with a vibrant, walkable, human-centered, mixed-use community, with design caliber proposed at Related Bristol is a once in a generation opportunity. As proposed, Related Bristol is consistent with Santa Ana’s laudable vision of creating a model urban village with the appropriate character and density specified in the General Plan. This project will set the standard in Orange County for redeveloping car-oriented strip shopping into mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly destinations that put people first.

Related Bristol is now ready for public hearings after two years of community outreach, public presentations, environmental reviews and millions of dollars spent on collaborative design with the city and stakeholders.

So why hasn’t it happened, and what if this landmark proposal remains in bureaucratic limbo for much longer?

The inability of the developer, Related California and the city to come to an agreement on the Development Agreement and community benefits package may now prompt Related Bristol to seek relief under the state’s Housing Accountability Act (HAA) to move the project forward from concept to actual roofs and walls. This course of action would undo the time and investment in the community visioning and communication process that produced this high quality design. However, if the city of Santa Ana and related California — with a history of working with many California cities, including Santa Ana — cannot reach a development agreement, then the developer would have to withdraw the project and pursue approvals of rights using HAA.

Unfortunately, such a step could result in the elimination of key community benefits that make this project a unique destination, including 13.1 acres of actively programmed open space, the amount and composition of retail and other financial contributions to the city.