If you thought Orange County couldn’t stuff any more homes, office buildings or stores into our already well-paved paradise, think again.
A review of the county’s 34 cities and its unincorporated land shows plans for a whopping 103,500 houses, condominiums and apartments, projects that are newly opened or in the pipeline. That’s nearly as many housing units as you’ll find right now in Anaheim, the county’s largest city.
If you track news, all that new housing makes some sense: A census report released last month found that the county’s population grew 5.5 percent – roughly 159,000 people – from 2010 through last year.
But the plans for retail development make less sense.
Over the next few years, the county is slated to get at least 15 million square feet of new retail and hotel space, the equivalent of five new South Coast Plazas coming online at a time when consumers are predicted to shop more often online, a trend that requires almost no new retail space.
There is even more local office space in development – about 16 million square feet.
Overall, the transformation we see near freeways, in former wilderness areas and along once-sleepy suburban streets can be described by two words we rarely hear in Orange County:
Urban density.
BIG CITIES GET BIGGER
For a series called “What Matters,” I visited the county’s 34 municipalities over the past year. I talked to residents, reviewed data, walked city halls, drove with city managers and mayors.
The idea was to write about each city: the people, the issues, the cultures. I discovered pride of ownership, unique histories – the essence of community DNA.
But I also found a few common threads, chief among them the pro and con questions raised by ongoing development. This was true even in parts of the county that seem built out.
The most significant thread was and remains development.
Several factors are contributing to the boom. One is the strong economy. Another is the lingering hangover from when the economy wasn’t strong; we’re still building out of a recession that ended, technically, in 2008.
Yet the big picture of big development is nearly invisible. One woman, for example, emailed that she was shocked her city allowed so much new housing during a time of drought.
Her reaction underscored a stark reality. Typically, the public gets development information piecemeal. In a county such as ours – where we have a big love of small government – each city offers only a partial look at its development plans.
About 25,000 housing units in Anaheim, for example, are either under construction or scheduled on blueprints. When finished, the 820-acre Platinum Triangle around Angel Stadium will include 19,000 apartments and condos, 14 million square feet of office space, and 4.7 million square feet of retail and hotel space.
Around 28,000 new residents are expected to move into the area. Already, the city is working with the local school district to build an elementary school.
Irvine has seen more than 4,000 new residential units in the past few years. Under construction or on the drawing board – much near the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station – are an additional 10 million square feet of commercial space as well as 12,300 homes.
Today, Irvine has about a quarter-million residents. In a decade or so, the city is expected to have an additional 60,000 people.
But big development is no longer limited to big cities.
SMALL Ones grow, too
Laguna Niguel is one of many local cities that has been at build-out for decades. Still, city planners found a way to add hundreds of housing units – literally by building up.
Along the I-5 near Crown Valley Parkway, a new project called Gateway will, upon completion, see a total of 2.26 million square feet of retail, office, entertainment and hotel space.
In the same area, 3,000 housing units recently have been completed or are under construction. Many are in six-story buildings.
Closer to the ocean, Laguna Niguel will soon see 22 acres of county land transformed into a downtown of sorts. Plans include 200 apartments along with 280,000 square feet of retail.
In the late 1990s, when fighter jets last flew into and out of the El Toro Marine base, nearby Lake Forest was a cozy town with 58,707 people. But the end of air traffic at El Toro did more than open Irvine for an injection of housing – it also made it possible to develop some hillside areas of Lake Forest.
Today, the city has added both land and population. Since the millennium, about 20,000 people have moved to Lake Forest. And by the time a crop of about 4,000 mostly hillside homes matures, the city’s population will nudge 100,000.
In Tustin, too, the closure of a Marine base has led to development. At the old Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, restaurants, shops and about 2,500 homes have been built over the past decade. The area will get 3,100 more dwellings over the next few years.
Even being older and supposedly built out isn’t stopping some cities from expanding.
In Costa Mesa, more than 2,000 new housing units (mostly condos and apartments) are in the planning stage or under construction.
And farther north, Yorba Linda is adding more than 1,600 apartments and homes, much of it on undeveloped hillside land. On what was once wilderness, south of Chino Hills State Park, plans include 83 new homes on 83 acres. If you have to ask the price, you probably can’t afford it, but a guess of $3 million per house isn’t crazy.
Even one of the county’s oldest cities, Huntington Beach, is squeezing in more restaurants, retail and housing.
Near the I-405 in Huntington Beach, one-room apartments with models named “Coast” and “Reef” and “Sand” fetch rents north of $3,000 a month. Near the new ocean-close mall, Pacific City – which includes new luxury stores and high-end restaurants – plans call for 500 new apartments.
This 21st-century version of Orange County is a revolution that promises to affect everything from schools to health care to transportation.
Fortunately, city and county managers already are hard at work.
Next: Growing pains
Contact the writer: dwhiting@ocregister.com
