The Santa Ana City Council and ‘Just One Bean Field’: Undemocratic Acts in a City of Immigrants
Written for Geography 111: Local and Regional Transformation, May 2006
I used to walk to McDonald’s virtually every morning. I would cross the railroad tracks and through the shadows of an old, yet operating factory where lima beans harvested across the street were transported to, packaged, and shipped. The sun would rise between the two distant hills, known as Saddleback, and shone brightly with an Orange County enthusiasm across the last 90 acres of undeveloped land in Santa Ana. Here, the lima bean stocks were planted, and every season my walks were blessed with the presence of a shimmering green of the leaves of mature plants. About seven years ago, a small plot on the corner of that massive lot known as Armstrong Ranch was sold to the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) where an elementary school was to be built. Five years later, the entire acreage was surrendered to economic and community interests- 2.5 acres were donated towards the building of a $15 million YMCA facility, 36 acres were sold for $40 million to the SAUSD for the construction of the district’s first new high school since 1989 at a price tag of $110 million, 16 acres were sold as the future site of a $100 million Cathedral to the second largest Catholic Diocese in the nation, and the remaining acreage would eventually be home to 156 lots for single-family homes that were first projected to sell at $600,000 in the initial planning, was later priced at $700,000-$800,000 by the time the first homes were built, and rose to $1.2 million six months later when the final homes were in the process of being built. I looked back behind me- just across the street, just across the railroad tracks- and wondered just how our humble, modest mobile home park would survive in the face of this development project.
The image of Santa Ana belongs more to the scene of trailers than mansions. The city of Santa Ana was ranked first in a survey documenting cities with the greatest hardship in America. The news is shock for most who live outside Orange County, but it is an all too painful truth as the city government has been trying to deal with the problem for nearly three decades, when the first major wave of immigrants arrived to the city causing “White Flight” from out of the historic downtown district to nearby, bourgeoning cities of Irvine, Costa Mesa, and Newport Beach made possible by 55 freeway corridor. The city’s 350,000 residents are populated in 27 square miles, making Santa Ana one of the most densely populated spaces in the country. Population estimates by regional geographers and social scientists actually produce figures nearer to 500,000 if one includes undocumented residents living in the city. Overpopulation has resulted in the disappearance of open lands in the city.
Much development these days are the result of creative destruction, a revitalization of blighted spaces across the city. Major projects supported by the City Council and Chamber of Commerce are concentrated through the efforts of two major developers, in two specific, high-profile regions in the city: in the downtown area, much of the development is controlled by Michael Harrah, who owns nearly 2,000,000 square feet of properties; and Segerstroms & Sons LLC, which controls significant portions of South Coast Metro in south Santa Ana.
In the 1990s Santa Ana adopted the slogan “Arts and Culture.” In an effort to highlight the arts, the city spent $11 million towards revitalizing its downtown district, including the purchase of a 1924 shopping arcade that led to a $7.5 million renovation effort towards the creation of the Grand Central Art Center and spending $1.7 million to help move the acclaimed Orange County High School of the Arts into a high-rise building. This focused effort in reclaiming sites in the downtown Santa Ana was to create a unique brand of arts to compete with artist haven Laguna Beach to the south and the Orange County Performing Arts Center just outside the city boundaries in Costa Mesa. Towards this end, 200 artists’ lofts were built in the area to accommodate the expected influx of artists seeking to capitalize on the financial investments the city had afforded to them in what became known as the Artists Village by 1994.
The impact of Artists Village has been marginally positive. While it has stopped the decaying process in the area and therefore raised property values, it appears that the project has had little discernible effect on the local residents. In developing the site in conjunction with the Bowers Museum as one for regional, national, and international consumption, the city has neglected to foment a base for sustainability. As Santa Ana continues to market the Artists Village as a “Place for Art,” the city’s negligence on the part of advertising for local resident participation has jeopardized the success of the project. Harrah, a major player in the affairs of the downtown district, does not appear to be optimistic about future prospects of the Artists Village scheme. He warns that “we have to start making some money,” on the heels of his Santora Building’s run of a $10,000 monthly deficit for three years. An historical landmark and property of Harrah’s, the Santa Ana Performing Arts and Events Center was recently sold to the Church of Scientology in an effort to raise enough money towards the construction of his new $86 million, 37-story One Broadway Plaza tower.
Harrah’s shift in priorities across his properties mirrors closely to the intentions of the City Council. Having passed Harrah’s proposal for One Broadway Plaza, and anticipating its construction as Orange County’s highest office building, the City Council decided on changing the slogan of the city to “Downtown Orange County.” The move raised many eyebrows countywide. Although Santa Ana had always been the seat of county government since the county’s incorporation at the turn of the century, many OC residents from more affluent communities have regarded the county’s largest city as a place where one goes to “pay my speeding tickets.” Sentiments in this conservative bastion of 3 million residents deride the city as a slum, a city of immorality and of violence, prejudices compounded against the city’s 80% immigrant population. The struggle for the City Council had always been sell the image of the city, to produce an attractive business and housing market so as to secure a strong tax base.
In accepting Harrah’s proposal, the city effectively redirected the course of development for the downtown district. Councilwoman Claudia Alvarez calls the tower “an anchor” for future developments, adding that “there is a renaissance in Santa Ana.” The small-scale and regionalized tactic of creating an arts center had failed to produce substantial results and the city has opened up to appeal to broader economic interests. The City Council had dropped the gauntlet to other key sites of economic power, such as industrial areas around John Wayne Airport in Irvine and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. In framing his argument for building the largest tower in the county, Harrah had posed the following, “You have to have an icon tower, the city has nothing to offer to Fortune 500 companies except height; If it's not going to be different than buildings at South Coast Plaza, why will these companies take a risk and come to Santa Ana?" Councilwoman Lisa Bist acknowledges that, "it is a huge risk," but adds "this can be a very, very exciting project for us. It can bring a lot of excitement to downtown."
In Santa Ana, risk is inextricably linked with opportunity. In Santa Ana, opportunity is inextricably linked with anxiety. When a councilwoman confirms that the proposal is, indeed, a risk, there is cause for concern. One of the byproducts of such construction is appreciating of land values which, on a more localized scale, equate for the immigrant family an increase in rent. For a city with migrant workers with limited disposable income, this building’s construction might very well translate into a mass exodus of low-income residents that will vacate properties to be snatched up by white-collar businessmen, or so the fear goes. This appears to be a worse-case scenario for local residents and yet it is the very situation that the City Council is attempting to produce. In a city without further space to expand, revitalization of space involves an input of money by the city government in hopes of a strong tax base from new, wealthier clientele and, in all hopes, new, wealthier residents. Armstrong Ranch is an extension of this new strategy set into motion by the City Council.
Per a charter adopted in 1952, Santa Ana operates on a council-manager government. It is led by a mayor who heads a council of six elected City Council members. While they are elected in a citywide election, they are nominated by specific wards- or regions- in the city. This is significant in that although the city features an overwhelmingly majority of Hispanics, there are heavy concentrations of White, middle-class communities in select neighborhoods. The downtown district, for example, features the historic Floral Park neighborhood just two blocks to the north, which houses early turn-of-the-century Victorian and Craftsman homes. Houses in Floral Park often go for over $1 million, or nearly four as much as the average home value in the city. The clout of Floral Park is apparent, as this community has successfully resisted efforts of building an elementary school in the area and successfully had the city re-install barricades to limit the traffic flow into neighborhood streets (however, the neighborhood failed to block One Broadway Plaza’s passage through the City Council). The other site of heavy concentration of middle-class interests is South Coast Metro, the location of Armstrong Ranch. The interests of these elected officials, then, are not supremely independent, but must, in part, be congruent with those ideals of their constituent communities (wards).
Complicating the interests of the City Council is its dependency on land ownership in the city. As evidenced thus far, the patterning of conflicting class interests plays a significant role in the determination of patterns of major developments. Class lines, racial lines in the city are clearly defined along neighborhoods lines, neighborhood lines which follow those boundaries of City Council wards. In attempting to re-image the city by producing places of residence for higher income communities, efforts by the City Council has been concentrated in communities where the city has heavily invested. In effect, this was what the Artists Village and the construction of artist lofts in the downtown area was intended to do. As we have seen in the case of Artists Village, the city is reliant on private developers in helping shape the physical space of the city. Harrah controls a major portion of space in the downtown, and the South Coast District is owned by Segerstrom. In order for the City Council to achieve its objective of attracting higher income residents, it must placate to the interests of the major developers. However, as it will be seen, these sites of active gentrification are more responsive to the interests of the City Council than the developers.
The area around Armstrong Ranch is known as South Coast Metro, named so as it was developed around the largest mall in America in South Coast Plaza. It is also the highest-grossing planned retail center in America, with $1.25 billion in sales in 2004, a 25% increase in just four years’ time and in spite of a softened economy. This resilience and relative strength of the OC real estate market had made the area around South Coast Plaza one of the most stable, most desirable locations in OC. This boom did not happen overnight. The mall had its early roots planted when the Segerstroms opened the shopping center in the 1967. By 1979, the Segerstroms had built their first skyscraper across the street, and the building of two 21-story towers Centre (1985) and Plaza (1992) resulted in South Coast Metro claiming the two tallest buildings in the county. Five miles away down the I-405 freeway, the county’s busiest airport- John Wayne Airport- was the site of another explosion of industry and construction. In time, the area between these two sites comprised of more office space than downtown Dallas or Atlanta. This has led Robert Lang, author of “Edgeless Cities: Exploring the Elusive Metropolis” to designate this region as the country’s biggest “edge city.”
The twist in this story is that South Coast Plaza is not located in Santa Ana, but in neighboring Costa Mesa. The city boundaries of Santa Ana extend to within one street of South Coast Plaza, a distinction that while the city is still able to profit from mall-goers and visitors to the Orange County Performing Arts Center and shopping center, Santa Ana is not able to directly capitalize on the tax-generating revenues. The broad-based appeal of South Coast Plaza assures itself of sustainability not on local residents, but on wealthier OC residents that are able to access the mall situated just off the I-405, the main artery of the county. While the mall is not dependent on the local population, it does support a significant population located within its sphere of influence. Most of the areas around South Coast Plaza are mixed with commercial and residential zones. On the Santa Ana side, the housing situation is comprised of award-winning apartment complexes located within two blocks of the mall and single-family homes within one mile. The addition of Armstrong Ranch is but the newest addition to this housing stock.
On the Costa Mesa side, along the I-405 and one mile to the north of South Coast Plaza, is Home Ranch, the site of CJ Segerstrom’s (for whom the company is named) original farmhouse built early in the 20th century. The house sits at the southern end of a 93-acre lima bean field, the last major open space in Costa Mesa owned by the family. The Segerstroms had wanted to develop the land since the 1980s. Residents and elected officials objected to all plans submitted and one such proposal, in 1999, was withdrawn before it came to the Planning Commission. Everything changed in 2001, when Home Ranch was finally slated for development. The winning proposal consisted of the building of a 300,000 square foot IKEA store and the development of 460 single-family homes to be priced at $500,000; the bid also included the following: $2 million endowment for three high schools, $8.46 million in traffic improvements, and $500,000 towards construction of a nearby firehouse and 30,000 square feet of land to be built upon. The two-decade long battle had been finally won by Segerstrom, but at a heavy price.
Service Employees International Union Local 1877, a labor group, strongly opposed the proposal. It stressed the need for more affordable housing in Costa Mesa, saying that the site was of particular concern to the union because 1,100 members lived within three to five miles from the project, which encompasses the site of Armstrong Ranch and my home. Paul Freeman, spokesman for CJ Segerstrom & Sons LLC, pointed out that “We had proposed more affordable housing, but the community and the majority of the council don’t want it; we agree that affordable housing is an issue, but a lot of communities, including Costa Mesa, don’t want it.” To this, Freeman added that the proposal for 400 rental units was “shot dead on arrival, there was no support for it.”
In essence, these were the same conditions in which the Armstrong Ranch housing project was accepted. Originally, the developer had submitted a proposal that called for the building of apartments, condominiums and attached homes. The property’s zoning initially allowed for the development of multiple-family homes, but Cindy Nelson, Deputy City Manager for Development Services, said the provision was eliminated “because the council was only seeking to see single-family housing on the site.” Bob Yoder, Vice President of Shea Homes, said his company was open to building multiple-family dwellings, but went along with the preferences of city officials: “You have to meet the objectives of this city.”
The decision not to move ahead with multiple-family homes is puzzling and casts doubt as to where City Council allegiances lie. Looking at city demographics, 88% of Santa Ana households have an annual income of less than $50,000, keeping in mind that Santa Ana has an average of 4.6 persons per household, and the fact that the city’s per capita income is less than half that of Orange County at $12,152. With a perpetual housing crisis to combat, the City Council voted in favor of homes with 6,000 square feet lots, homes that Les Thomas, President of Shea’s Southern California Division, admitted to using Santa Ana’s Floral Park as “a kind of model.” Floral Park, home to a large population of Whites in Santa Ana and a neighborhood of middle-class values, was emblematic of what Armstrong Ranch had striven to be: exclusive, reclusive, yet outward-looking. These enclaves- gated at Armstrong Ranch and protected by road barriers at Floral Park- suggests policy-making based heavily on moneyed interests, an aside from the common good in a city fighting to make ends meet as the city with the greatest hardship in America. There was only one city official who publicly voiced his opposition to the project- the Planning Commissioner, no less.
The ease of selling the four-bedroom Armstrong Ranch houses has been due in part to quality of education. Santa Ana has promoted the slogan “Education First” for nearly two decades, an ironic statement in that the SAUSD has consistently ranked among the lowest in academic performance at the county and state levels. The prized schools of the SAUSD are ones that have been designated “fundamental,” where the curriculum is focused towards gearing students to attend college. Armstrong Ranch is situated within one mile of four of the six city fundamental schools, including the newly built Segerstrom Fundamental High School on the far side of the land plot; with the construction of a fundamental high school, a child now has the opportunity to complete a K-12 education at fundamental schools. Within two miles are two private high schools, Mater Dei and Calvary Chapel. As Segerstrom High marks the first fundamental high school in the city, parents in the area had traditionally sent their children to private or out-of-district high schools. At Mater Dei, for example, the school population is comprised of 58% Caucasian, 21% Hispanic and 14% Asian, while at Calvary Chapel the school admits that “though many of the families are from upper and middle incomes, 25% of the student body is from a lower socioeconomic group.” Meanwhile, SAUSD statistics report that 92% of the 60,000 students in the district are Latino, 4% Asian, and only 3% White and overall, 87% of students are from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. If there ever was a site for development designed for a higher income group in Santa Ana, this was it and the City Council was not going to let the opportunity slip by.
What is surprising in the Home and Armstrong Ranch developments was the willingness of the Costa Mesa and Santa Ana City Councils in passing over multiple-family housing units in favor of single-family homes. Developers have begun to understand the delicacy in proposing proper land usage with regards the unique urban terrain of Santa Ana. This is thanks in major part to the Neighborhood Improvement Plan implemented in the 1980s. With new demographics changing the face of the city, city administrators devised a plan to “feel the pulse” of the city. The “new demographics,” in essence, was also to create a vehicle through which all residents can bring up issues, including undocumented immigrants. In this way, the government effectively approached maintenance of the city in a democratic fashion. In creating the NIP, neighborhood planners provided a mechanism for expressing concerns, raising awareness, and suggest improvements to the City Manager. Turnout was high and this phenomena eventually became formalized as “neighborhood associations”; 52 officially recognized neighborhood associations cover most of the residential areas in the city today.
When the Rockefeller Institute report came out documenting hardship in 2004, President and Chief Executive of the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce, Michael Metzler, explained that the city had used the findings and recommendations in the report to implement of a five-year strategy. When asked whether Santa Ana’s economic health and stability could only be achieved if racial demographics changed, Metzler replied that the only demographic that needed to change was income and that this would be facilitated through the creation of new jobs. By the time Metzler had elaborated this strategy, the City Council had already approved the Armstrong Ranch project and the construction of One Broadway Plaza. In part due to the unavailability of land in the city to produce a massive planning project, the City Council’s efforts have thus far been too inconsistent and too narrowly-focused, hopping from one project to the next. Metzler notes that “the City Council must develop a vision and communicate that vision to the community, and then they must work with us and anybody else to go out and help people achieve this; it starts with a vision and the City Council does not have one: it’s more project-oriented, not community-oriented, and that needs to change.”
I left for Berkeley last summer as an entering freshman. At the time, the Segerstrom High School was as close to completion as it would ever get as it prepared to greet the incoming fall class. The grounds of the cathedral had been worked on, but the project has been indefinitely delayed due to ongoing claim settlements in the sex-abuse scandal. The houses at Armstrong Ranch are, for the most part, erected, inhabited, and has resulted in heavier foot traffic on sidewalks during morning jogs. Armstrong Ranch was a project introduced by Segerstrom, but it was the brainchild of the City Council. In between those lovable slogans “Education First,” “Arts and Culture,” and “Downtown Orange County,” Santa Ana had adopted another in 2003: “Spirit of Change.” That spirit did not last long, three years, for the pace of development, rehabilitation, and revitalization (gentrification) had been taking too long to materialize. UCI Planning Professor Marlon Boarnet, still realizing the potential of the forgotten Artists Village, advises, “I would caution patience; a downtown project is a slow and incremental project.” In the spirit of change, time has moved too slowly. The city has jumped from project to project, without a hint of planning below except for the uneasy buttress of cheap slogans. Resident Jeff Dickman is dumbfounded, explaining, “You build a city with a plan, not around an idea to build one building.” City Council members are out to prove him wrong with One Broadway Plaza: welcome to Downtown Orange County.
Who knows when interest in city health is actually considered when the rules of engagement have been blurred and economic interests supersede. Those democratic days of neighborhood associations have taken a backdoor to the City Council’s interest in participation in a wider regional economy and an attempt to tap into the global economy. The City Council “wants to compete with Irvine, and this is not Irvine,” remarks resident Oscar Garza. “City officials need to look at what Santa Ana is and build from there. They can’t use ideas from other cities that have a different story.” The lima beans are no longer there. They have effectively wiped off the face of the field. One could reach into that rich soil and find no seeds, though some would claim the land is richer now. There is no semblance of history, albeit in the names, inconsequential markers that make claim to history: Segerstrom High School, Armstrong Ranch. For all the word games, life in Santa Ana has not gotten any better. But, perhaps, carving out an existence is better than having to be forcibly moved out as tenants with more money continue to filter into the area; just as planned. This was one battle the neighborhood associations didn’t win, but the struggle continues; Helen Brown, President of the Santa Ana nonprofit organization Civic Center Barrio Housing Corp., shrugs off the development as “just one bean field.”
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