I'm late to this story, and will more than make up for it in the coming weeks (I'm warning you, Don Papi Pulido), but the Orange County Register's Doug Irving filed a fascinating summary a couple of weeks ago of the SanTana City Council's latest gentrification ruse. Since community activists made the Renaissance Plan go the way of Councilmember Busty Bustamante's political ambitions, the city council has returned with something called the Station District, which would focus development initially around the city's historic train station and proceed from there. How focused? Irving reports that city plans call for 4,000 residential units in the city's downtown area, which isn't “Downtown Orange County” no matter how much boosters lamely claim otherwise.
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Four pinche thousand. In a city that's already one of the
densest in the United States, in a city already straining with
antiquated infrastructure and schools that can hardly handle its
current population. City planners, staffers and code enforcers have
tried to alleviate density, not exacerbate it, in the last decade–how
do they justify the 4,000 new residences they propose? That's
right–they won't be poor Mexicans, so that makes it okay!
More, much more to come in the coming weeks…
