Foothills Sentry March 2023

Page 5 Foothills Sentry March 2023 Circulation … 40,000 Published on the last Tuesday of each month and distributed to residences, businesses, libraries and civic centers. Printing by Advantage, Inc. 714-532-4406 Fax: 714-532-6755 foothillssentry.com 1107 E. Chapman Ave., #207 Orange, CA 92866 © Foothills Sentry 2023 Publisher/Editor Anita Bennyhoff 1969-2013 Editor Tina Richards editor@foothillssentry.com Sports Editor Cliff Robbins sportseditor@att.net Graphic Designer Stephanie Gundran graphics@foothillssentry.com Advertising Sales Andie Mills advertising@foothillssentry.com 714-926-9299 Office Manager Kathy Eidson officemanager@foothillssentry. com I sincerely wish, as a VP aquat- ics family, that Ortega might have opted to avoid the politicking and let the strength of the program and condition of the pool speak for themselves. Understand- ing and respecting that years of effort from over 1,500 district stakeholders went into the Master Facilities Plan, and that the plan places other dire needs ahead of high school pools, we are none- theless about to lose the pool. The need is there and, arguably, the need is urgent. It’s yet another blight on the process that the board must make critical decisions amidst the cur- rent chaos that the Ledesma-led board majority has created, and which Ortega made tit-for-tat deals to help achieve. Stacey Kirschner Meis Orange Dear Editor: After reading the December 2022 article on OUSD, I became concerned. The story neglected to tell us the reasons why the par- ents were so angry at the fall 2021 meeting. Transparency is important. Parents are pulling their children from Orange schools. Why? All over the United States, there are those who are trying to infiltrate public schools with sex education starting in pre-kindergarten and up. Is this why parents are an- gry? Taking away our children’s innocence at such an early age is truly sad. I'm hoping our young students’ innocence will be pro- tected, always. I am confident our newly elected board members will not allow this to happen in our schools. They will make sure the focus is on reading, writing and math. They will always be re- spectful of all parents’ rights and freedom of speech. In closing, let me say, I am ex- tremely pleased with the election of Madison Miner to the OUSD board. How her four children and all children in our Orange schools are taught is absolutely critical in raising intelligent, moral United States citizens who prize their freedoms. Patricia Detterich Orange What's next Dear Editor: The Orange Unified School District Board (OUSD) is clearly implementing a new agenda. Is the sale of the former Peralta site at Meats Avenue and Cam- bridge Street back on the radar? Several OUSD trustees who op- posed the sale in the past are no longer on the school board. It is anticipated that the new majority may move to sell or lease the for- mer Peralta School property. History may repeat itself. In 2013, the school board proposed to sell/lease Peralta to a developer for high-density multi-story hous- ing. This proposal was met with fierce opposition from the “Save Peralta” group of concerned resi- dents. Opposition arose due to the community’s desire not to sell the property and an express need for future school sites. In addition, residents recognized Peralta as an essential facility for the rec- reational needs of the students in the district. The debate regarding a need for future school sites was well be- fore the state-mandated 6th Cycle Housing Element Update. It re- quires the production of 4,000 ad- ditional dwelling units in Orange. It is likely that more high-density housing developments are in our future. City officials currently state the zoning on the former Peralta School site should be changed to Public Institution (PI), as the cur- rent zoning is inconsistent with the General Plan. It is zoned for R-1-8 residential housing with a minimum 8,000-sq.-ft. lot. Resi- dents do not support a zoning change to PI without limitations on how the former Peralta site will be used in the future. To better explain the concerns about PI zoning, we turn to Or- ange Zoning Code Chapter 17.24, which addresses the proper use of the Public Institution zone. It states, “The Public Institution district is established to accom- modate a wide range of public and quasi-public uses which, by their very nature, need special consideration to ensure compat- ibility with surrounding develop- ment.” Please note the emphasis on “compatibility.” The zoning code goes on to state, “APublic Institution district may also accommodate housing and privately operated office ac- tivity that is functionally related to a public and quasi-public use. This district is further intended to be applied only to property clear- ly intended for such public and quasi-public uses.” Without restrictions, Chapman University could exploit the PI zoning and create high-density multi-story student housing. Neighbors are concerned about the well-deserved bad reputation earned by some Chapman stu- dents regarding housing. To reiterate, “compatibility” is the issue and neighbors do not be- lieve student housing is compat- ible with the surrounding neigh- borhoods. Peralta impacts the entire city, and, therefore, any zoning change needs to be done within the framework of updating the General Plan. The General Plan guides city development and de- termines what Orange will be- come during the next 10 years. Peralta site decisions should be done with significant community outreach efforts and valuable in- put from the residents. Both the OUSD Board and Orange City Council have an important oppor- tunity to make positive change with decades-long impacts. For information on this topic and our 7 Recommendations Plan for the North Tustin Street Corridor, email northtustinstreet- group@gmail.com . Michael Fischer North Tustin Street Preservation Group Orange Village venture Dear Editor: Integrating residential with re- tail is critical to revitalizing the Village At Orange. We can all agree the Village At Orange has seen better days. Powerful market forces, such as the rise of online shopping, have left it a relic of a by-gone era. Integral Communities, in col- laboration with TRC, proposes replacing the vacant JC Penney building and surrounding parking lot, and the largely empty inte- rior mall building with a mixed- use community of 297 for-sale, market-rate townhomes that will be integrated with existing retail offerings, as well as future plans for a dining and daily needs mar- ketplace. The exterior tenant spaces facing Tustin Street – such as Sprouts, HomeGoods, Trader Joe’s, etc. – will remain, and more experiential retail and din- ing offerings added. As proposed, the townhomes will each have a two-car garage, and the community will feature HOA-maintained amenities, such as a recreation center, pool, green spaces and publicly accessible community park. The marriage of new residen- tial communities with new and existing retail is happening at malls all across Orange County. The Laguna Hills Mall, Westmin- ster Mall, Brea Mall, MainPlace in Santa Ana are all planning for, or are, in the development phase of major redevelopment initia- tives designed to position them as exciting, relevant centers where people will live, work, play, dine and shop. Like the highly creative, ex- perienced retail property own- ers and residential development companies that are investing their experience and capital to revital- ize these aging malls, Integral Communities and TRC are com- mitted to their revitalization plan for the Village At Orange. With the community’s sup- port, the Village At Orange will re-emerge as a dining and daily needs marketplace that contrib- utes to the long-term housing and economic development objec- tives of the City of Orange. We encourage residents to find out more by visiting our “Village at Orange Revitalization” page on Nextdoor and our site Village- atOrangeRevitalization.com for more information and updates. Peter Vanek, vice president Forward Planning for Integral Communities, owner of the JC Penney portion of the Village at Orange. Dear Editor: My wife and I have called Or- ange home for many, many years, in a neighborhood not far from the Orange Mall [Village At Or- ange]. Let’s face facts: the mall is dying and not coming back in its present form. Almost every other mall in the county is incorporating residen- tial into their long-term survival strategies. They’re moving in this direction because they’ve studied the trends and know the market. The Village at Orange property owners want to build a reason- able number of for-sale, two- and three-story townhomes that are at- tractive and well-designed. Com- pare that to plans to redevelop the Laguna Hills Mall with dense, multi-story apartment buildings or plans to demolish the Sears at the Brea Mall and replace it with 380 apartments. I prefer for-sale homes to apartments. Furthermore, property owners have rights. Do we want an empty shell of a mall, surrounded by a sea of empty parking spaces that attract transients and other ele- ments of blight? Ironically, those fighting this proposal are just making it more likely that any mall redevelopment will be big- ger and more dense. All those empty spaces aren’t generating tax revenues for the city. New homes bring in prop- erty taxes, and the retail they’ll attract will boost sales tax. Change is hard. The mall has been a part of Orange for de- cades, and we all have memories and connections to it. No plan is perfect, but the development pro- posal from the property owners is a reasonable one and a great im- provement on the status quo. Adalberto Lopez Orange Dear Editor: It’s in our interest as Orange residents for the Village at Orange to succeed. The stores on the exte- rior like Sprouts and HomeGoods seem to be doing well. But if you go inside the mall, it’s turning into a ghost town. Every year, there are fewer tenants inside. I believe the proposal put for- ward by Integral Communities and TRC is a solid plan for turn- ing the mall around and improv- ing the area. It seems that the city will benefit from property and sales tax revenue. The townhomes and the com- munity look well-designed, and I appreciate that they’re for-sale, market-rate town homes. There’s a need for starter homes, but it also seems that they are designed in a way that will not bring down the value of surrounding homes. And quite frankly, the alter- native is the mall continuing its slow death. The property owners have investors they’re respon- sible to. They’re going to develop something. I’d prefer for-sale townhomes that will bring in new families, and help attract newer, better tenants that we can all en- joy. If just filling the mall with new or different tenants was going to be a better option, it would have happened already. I understand the apprehension being expressed by some resi- dents. It’s tempting to hope the mall can somehow be revived as a retail shopping center, but that’s wishful thinking. The most likely negative impacts facing us are blight from the continued decline of the mall. Jon Oskorus Orange Too close for comfort Dear Editor: I am among the many con- cerned parents of students at Oakridge Private School. It has come to our attention that there are plans to replace a block of open green space very close to our campus, with a dumping ground for construction debris. Apparently a waiver was grant- ed for the usual Environmental Impact Report that the State of California requires. This seems not only strange, but simply wrong in a situation where the environmental impact directly in- volves young children. We owe it to our children to provide the best, safest condi- tions for their educational envi- ronment. The pandemic took a heavy toll on young students, so anything we can do to help them make up the lost ground matters. I, and the other parents, are hoping to convince our elected representatives to hit the brakes on this project before it has a neg- ative impact. Priya Shah Oakridge parent Dear Editor: I am the proud parent of a stu- dent at Oakridge School. I have just learned that there are plans to create an “inert dump” just across the street from the school. While I believe the developer should have informed the school and its student family first, I was relieved to see that we can still have a say about this project and whether or not it should be approved. Among the many concerns I have, is the inevitable environ- mental effects on our wonderful campus. Dust, fumes, who knows what will be moving past the campus pretty much constantly. Has no one considered the ef- fect on the children as well as the adults in the Oakridge communi- ty? After the difficulties we dealt with through the worst of the pan- demic, it seems an unnecessary risk to the health of the children, the teachers, staff and parents. As it is part of our community, it seems that we need to have the opportunity to, at the very least, ask questions of our elected offi- cials as to what our options are. And it should be of interest to our local media as well. Ashton Morris Orange Dear Editor: My children attend Oakridge School in Orange. Our family put a lot of thought into the de- cision to choose Oakridge and have never regretted our choice. The 220 students are a wonderful cross-section of Orange County families, and it is an all-around excellent school. But we are very concerned, and unpleasantly surprised, to learn of plans to build a construction waste dump less than 50 feet from the school grounds. Our concerns are many, not the least of which is the disruption to the education process by the many large, loud diesel trucks that will be access- ing the facility while school is in session. This is a major health and safety concern for our stu- dents and faculty. We would like to see an effort made to locate an alternative site for the facility that would not en- croach on an excellent school and its operation. Noelle Carden Oakridge parent