Roughly 450 apartments are expected to replace a vacant cinema in the Anaheim Hills Festival plaza despite fierce and persistent opposition from nearby residents raising concerns it will increase wildfire evacuation times.
Developers with Shea Properties argue the project will revitalize the shopping center, bring needed housing to Anaheim Hills and will give hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund wildfire mitigation efforts and to help support evacuation training.
A host of neighboring residents have repeatedly shown up to city council meetings this year to oppose the project, chiefly saying it would drive up already high evacuation times in an area heavily prone to wildfires.
[Read: Anaheim Hills Housing Proposal Sparks Wildfire Evacuation Concerns]
On Tuesday, city council members narrowly voted 4-3 to approve and move forward with the development – dubbed the Anaheim Hills Festival Project – despite intense push back from many residents.
Councilwoman Norma Kurtz said every district in the city should be treated the same in terms of resources and pointed to challenges in the district she represents in the resort area.
According to city staff, the area has seen 25% of the homes built in Anaheim in roughly the last 25 years.
“I have neighborhoods in my district that have one way in, one way out. I have neighborhoods where an emergency vehicle cannot get through because of the parking situation,” she said.
“Every resident in every neighborhood in Anaheim, deserves the same resources as any other neighborhood.”
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken, Councilwomen Kristen Maahs and Natalie Meeks were the dissenting votes.
Aitken acknowledged that the development would bring needed housing to the city and other benefits, but raised public safety concerns.
“What I’m hearing and what I’ve been thinking about over the last couple months is that we are hopeful that goats, one abatement marshal and a Know Your Way plan, are going to be enough to evacuate every senior, every child, every family from the area,” she said.
“I know that these remedies seem adequate, but for me, they are untested and aspirational.”
Aitken also said officials represent all of Anaheim, not just their districts.
“Instead of exporting problems from districts to other districts, why don’t we import solutions and import better practices? Because it just breaks my heart to think that you have an issue in your district, and your solution is, ‘I’m going to put it in yours too,’” she said.
It comes after a majority of city council members shot down a nearly 500-unit luxury apartment development in Deer Canyon in 2024 at the recommendation of staff after a host of residents raised similar public safety concerns about that project raising evacuation times.
Unlike the Deer Canyon project, city staff recommended officials approve the Festival project.
Anaheim Fire Chief Pat Russell said he was not comfortable saying which project was safer but there were clear differences.
“The Deer Canyon project, in my opinion, was a much larger, much more complex project and putting in an entirely new community into that canyon was much different than this project,” he said.
Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava said she trusts staff’s recommendations and more housing is needed in Anaheim Hills.
She also said the development isn’t the same as the Deer Canyon proposal.
“This is a different project. This is an infill project, and I really do feel strongly about the fact that Anaheim Hills does need to see a little more development, and we need to spread our multifamily units across the city,” she said.
“We have 18,000 units to build in the next five to six years, and it needs to be done in places other than just district three, four and five.”
About 76% of homes built in the city between 2000-2025 were in District 3, 4, and 5 – the central part of the city. About 9% of homes in that same time frame were built in District 6 – the East end of town, according to city staff.
The other 15% of homes were built in Districts 1 and 2 – the west end.
Tuesday’s decision also comes after city council members continued the public hearing on the proposal in an effort to get the developers to ensure unionized labor works on parts of the project after union workers publicly raised concerns.
City staff said Tuesday that developers reached an agreement with the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters union at the end of February.
The developer, Shea Properties, did not speak to the project at this week’s hearing.
According to city lobbyist disclosures, they hired Curt Pringle, former Anaheim mayor, and his lobbyist firm in 2023 to lobby for the project.
The Festival Development in Anaheim
The Anaheim Festival development is slated to be a four-story apartment building with 447 units wrapped around a 954-space parking garage, swimming pools, a fitness center, a dog park and bluff park open to the public.
Most of the proposed housing project at the festival shopping center sits in an area the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention has deemed a very high fire hazard severity zone.
As part of a development agreement, developers are expected to give $100,000 to Anaheim Fire and Rescue to fund wildfire mitigation efforts and another $100,000 to Anaheim police to help support evacuation training.
They would also install a camera and Emergency Vehicle Preemption system on Santa Ana Canyon Road at four intersections to help improve emergency response times in the area.
According to a staff report, the developer will also have to pay $2.4 million in park and recreation impact fees and $1.8 million in transportation impact fees.
An evacuation travel time analysis completed by Dudek found that the proposed housing project would increase current evacuation times without the operational cinema in the area by 14 minutes in the worst case wildfire scenario.
According to the analysis, the increase would bring the evacuation time in Deer Canyon Park above three hours in that scenario, but city staff said the impact to evacuations is insignificant.
As part of the project, 45 apartments would be designated for moderate income families, but none are proposed for low income families.
The developer will also not have to pay a fee in lieu of building affordable housing because the application for the project was filed before the city officials approved their affordable housing mandate.
Sounding Off on a Housing Project in The Hills
During Tuesday’s public comment portion of the council meeting, scores of Anaheim Hills residents argued the project would increase already long evacuation times and called on officials to improve fire safety and evacuation infrastructure before approving high-density housing.
Many residents also criticized the city’s “Know Your Way” evacuation plan and argued it was unrealistic that people would follow it in an emergency, as well as questioned how effective it is and how many people know it.
Dr. Rick Moyer, a retired physician who has lived in Anaheim Hills for over three decades, said he survived the 2017 Canyon Fire and the safety risks of the festival project outweigh the benefits.
“During the evacuation, some of the residents have reported to you that it took three hours to travel what normally takes 15 minutes. Other residents reported that they had to abandon their vehicles due to safety issues,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Russell said while the city’s “Know Your Way” plan hasn’t been used yet, he believed it would be successful.
“I’m not saying that it’s going to be perfect, not saying that we’re not going to have challenges, not saying we’re not going to have to pivot and address some of those things,” he said.
“We’re ready to do that and we will do that because we’re going to get people out.”
Some residents spoke in favor of the project, arguing young people need to get into housing.
“Over the past several years, housing demand throughout Orange County has continued to rise, while supply has struggled to keep up, leading to higher home prices and limited options,” said Julian Navarro, a Santa Ana College student who grew up in Anaheim.
“By permitting responsible residential development in Anaheim Hills, the city can help relieve pressure on the local housing market, making it more realistic for teachers, firefighters, nurses and other working professionals to live closer to where they work instead of commuting long distances.”
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. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.