February 04, 2022
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On Angel Stadium deal breaking affordable housing law, Anaheim tells state officials they’re wrong - OCRegister

The Stadium Development Plan is a proposed 30-year master plan that would bring “a diverse housing, transit-oriented and walkable community to the Platinum Triangle – all anchored by parks, offices, public spaces, shops, restaurants and entertainment entirely connected to Angels Baseball.” (Courtesy of SRB Management)
The Stadium Development Plan is a proposed 30-year master plan that would bring “a diverse housing, transit-oriented and walkable community to the Platinum Triangle – all anchored by parks, offices, public spaces, shops, restaurants and entertainment entirely connected to Angels Baseball.” (Courtesy of SRB Management)

After a state housing department decided in December that Anaheim’s sale of Angel Stadium broke an affordable housing law, the city on Friday, Feb. 4, issued a response basically saying: We continue to disagree that the deal was covered by the law in question, and you should withdraw the assertion.

The city’s response to the Department of Housing and Community Development didn’t offer any remedy for the violation or say whether Anaheim officials plan to pay a possible fine of as much as $96 million.

In its letter, the city said the notice of violation the state issued in December “relies on an erroneous interpretation of law and mistaken facts” and should be rescinded. Also, because the development proposed in the stadium deal includes a “significant amount” of affordable housing (777 of the 5,175 units, paid for by the city and the buyer), the state’s finding “violates the spirit and intent of the Surplus Land Act and is inconsistent with (the department’s) core mission to facilitate the development of affordable housing in California.”

That appears to leave it to the state to decide whether to negotiate further with Anaheim to solve the dispute, hit the city with the first financial penalty ever imposed under the Surplus Land Act, or seek a court injunction to block the sale, which has not closed escrow.

The City Council voted in December 2019 to sell the 150-acre Angel Stadium property to Arte Moreno’s SRB Management for $150 million in cash and $170 million in community benefits including 466 affordable apartments and a 7-acre showpiece public park. SRB plans to develop the parcel with hotels, restaurants, offices and homes, plus a new or renovated baseball stadium – it is proposing to build 311 affordable units on top of what the city is having built.

Anaheim and state housing officials are at odds over whether the city should have followed Surplus Land Act procedures, which require government agencies planning to sell public land to first offer it to developers who could build homes for low-income families.

When the state housing department notified the city in December that it considered the law broken, it outlined several options to remedy the violation, any of which might require rescinding or renegotiating the deal with SRB:

  • Declare the land surplus, follow the law’s procedures for advertising the stadium property to home developers, and if no viable offers are made, proceed with the original deal.
  • Put the land out for competitive bidding, and require that any development include at least 25% affordable homes (the current proposal includes 15% affordable units).
  • Increase the share of affordable homes in the proposed development to at least 40%.

City leaders so far don’t seem inclined toward any of those options, but Mayor Harry Sidhu said in a statement Friday that Anaheim officials “share a goal of seeing more affordable housing and look forward to finding a reasonable path forward.”

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.



source: https://www.ocregister.com/2022/02/04/on-angel-stadium-deal-breaking-affordable-housing-law-anaheim-tells-state-officials-theyre-wrong/

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