Civic leaders in the Orange County town of Stanton hope that the reuse of a failed commercial strip for medium-density housing and small shops will start a local trend. Developers of the Renaissance Plaza propose 175 townhouses, 25 live-work units and about 18,000 square feet of commercial space on approximately 12 acres. Although the first phase of the two-phase project is not scheduled to break ground until this spring, city officials believe Renaissance Plaza may quickly become a model for development elsewhere in Stanton.

“Stanton has always struggled with its identity. It’s a place people pass through on their way to Disneyland or somewhere else,” said Wendy Grant of The Planning Center, which helped prepare a specific plan for the 14.9-acre site on Beach Boulevard. The plan is intended to help provide suburban Stanton with an identity, and to provide something of a downtown gathering site, which the community now lacks.

Unlike many of its neighbors in northern Orange County, Stanton, a city of 40,000 people on only 3.2 square miles, has no downtown of any sort. In fact, while other cities in the area have been revitalizing old downtowns, building new ones and generally riding the real estate wave, Stanton has remained frozen in time. The real estate boom that began during the late 1990s largely passed over Stanton, conceded Steven Harris, the city’s community development director. Now, with many of northern Orange County’s “easy” infill sites spoken for, and with real estate prices continuing to rise, Stanton is getting a fresh look.

Stanton’s predominant feature may be Beach Boulevard, a six-lane arterial that actually is a state highway. Every day, Beach Boulevard carries about 55,000 vehicles, many of them making their way quickly through Stanton. Commercial strips line most of the high-speed boulevard. Stanton Plaza is one of those strips, but the center and neighboring commercial strips have underperformed for years, Harris said. In hopes of revitalizing that stretch of Beach Boulevard, the city in 2002 adopted a specific plan that called for improving the aesthetics of existing commercial buildings and developing commercial infill. However, the multiple property owners could not agree on what to do, the city’s staff turned over and, as a result, nothing happened.

When Harris came aboard in 2003, he urged a fresh look. That was fine with Brandywine Homes, an Irvine-based infill developer that said the site was prime for housing development, not new commercial projects.

“I had my eye on that property for about seven years, and it took me about five years to tie it up,” said Brandywine President Brett Whitehead. “This is kind of our niche — the older parts of Orange County that people have overlooked.”

Recognizing that the 2002 specific plan would not work, The Planning Center, the city and Brandywine went to work on a new plan. The city did what it could to gather public input, but Stanton’s residents are not engaged in land use planning. In early 2005, the city adopted a mixed-use specific plan that permits between 200 and 300 housing units and up to 35,000 square feet of commercial uses. The plan also contains extensive design criteria. Last fall, the California Chapter of the American Planning Association gave the new Stanton Plaza specific plan a small jurisdiction planning award.

The specific plan envisions something of a small, self-contained district. The plan calls for new internal streets that serve residents of the new housing units while being friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists. There also will be a new link to an existing mobile home park, permitting those residents to walk to new shops in the specific plan area. Beach Boulevard will not be the focal point.

“We wanted to create this little main street area off Beach Boulevard,” Harris explained.

The specific plan is more ambitious that Brandywine’s initial idea, which was a three-acre residential project. But Whitehead said he is pleased with how the project has evolved. Brandywine has acquired 10.5 acres, and the city’s redevelopment authority is negotiating to get another 1.5 acres for Brandywine’s project. A second property owner hopes to pursue a mixed-use development on a 2.9-acre plot (known as Area D in the plan) just north of Renaissance Plaza.

The city has approved tract maps for the 100 townhouses and six live-work units in the first phase of Renaissance Plaza. Under the specific plan, the city’s community development director has authority to provide site plan and design review approval so long as the project complies the specific plan. The idea behind that streamlined administrative process was to motivate developers to abide by the specific plan, Grant said. The city Planning Commission has been involved through study sessions, she added.

Another streamlining measure concerns environmental review. The city certified an environmental impact report for the specific plan. As long as development proposals comply with the specific plan and cumulative traffic from the specific plan area remains at less than an average of 6,500 vehicle trips per day, the city plans to require no additional environmental review. The 6,500 average daily trips (ADT) figure was derived from the 70,000 square feet of commercial space that was on the specific plan site. That amount of commercial space would typically generate 6,500 ADT, Harris said. As long as the new development stays below that traffic threshold, there is no traffic or air quality impact, and no mandate to prepare a congestion management plan, he said.

With its first phase entitlements in hand, Brandywine intends to complete building demolition this month. New housing units could be open by the end of the year, Whitehead said.

Renaissance Plaza is Brandywine’s first mixed-use project (Whitehead calls it “multi-use”) but more could follow. People want to be in the center of activity, Whitehead said.

“There’s a lack of new homes in the older parts Orange County, especially at an affordable price — if you call $400,000 to $500,000 affordable,” he added.

Grant said Stanton Plaza could be a catalyst for more small-scale, mixed-use, reuse projects. “This has been that stepping-off point for the city,” she said. “It’s a major corridor, and it’s always been commercial. Now, the city is thinking about how best to use it. Strip centers are not an efficient use of land.”

The city already is eyeing development of a 10-acre site farther north on Beach Boulevard that now has a kiddie fun park known as Hobby City. The park’s owners want out after 50 years in business, and the site would be ideal to replicate some of the mixed-use concepts in the Stanton Plaza specific plan, Harris said.

“We’ve had a lot of people come in and talk about Beach Boulevard and high-density. And that’s what we want to see,” Harris said.

Additionally, the city recently received a $200,000 grant from the Orange County Council of Governments to plan for a transit-oriented development around a potential transit station. When transit does come — there is no firm plan yet — the city will be ready, Harris said.

Contacts:
Steven Harris, City of Stanton, (714) 379-9222.
Wendy Grant, The Planning Center, (714) 966-9220.
Brett Whitehead, Brandywine Homes, (949) 296-2400.