A Utah developer wants to give nearly 50 acres to an Anaheim wilderness preserve in exchange for city approval to build more than 500 homes.
Salt Development, based in Salt Lake City, has filed plans to build a seven-story apartment building, six large-lot estate homes and some commercial space along Deer Canyon in Anaheim Hills, the Orange County Register reported.
The 76-acre property is flanked by Santa Ana Canyon Road and the 91 Freeway to the north, a shopping center to the east and homes to the west and south.
Salt aims to develop one side of the property and donate 46 acres, or 60 percent of the land, to the city to expand its adjacent Deer Canyon Park Preserve. The 103-acre wilderness, acquired in 1994, is now used for hiking and horseback riding.
Preliminary plans for the project, dubbed Hills Preserve, call for a mid-century modern-style building with 498 luxury apartments, from studios up to three-bedroom units. It would include a rooftop pool, bowling alley and sauna.
The seven-story building would be on the lowest part of the property and sunk into the hillside to preserve views.
“The idea is that this is the nicest apartment building that will exist in Orange County,” Brian Hobbs, president of Salt Development, told the Register. “This would be the perfect location to not only bring high-end housing to Anaheim Hills, but also to expand the park.”
In addition to the six single-family estate lots, Hobbs said the project would include two pads for commercial buildings, likely medical offices and maybe a restaurant.
Hobbs said some residents at meetings hosted by the developer liked the project.
But residents have already begun marshaling opposition to a project they say would strain roadways and water supplies, displace wildlife and create fire risks.
“This complex would cause a huge traffic problem, I think it’s a fire hazard, we have a shortage of water – I don’t know where the water’s going to come from,” said Dan Scanlon, who chairs a residents’ group fighting the Salt proposal.
“We’re not trying to be the snooty people that say, ‘We got ours,’” he said, adding that residents bought into the neighborhood knowing how it was zoned, “so let’s stick with what the plan was.”
In 2005, a different developer got a 47-acre swath of the private property zoned for 35 homes, but they were never built, Anaheim spokeswoman Erin Ryan said.
Scanlon believed up to 93 homes would be allowed in total, but Hobbs said the current “transitional” zoning of SALT’s property makes it hard to say exactly how many units could be built.
— Dana Bartholomew
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