Fountain Valley is charging forward with one of its largest housing proposals in years.
City officials signed off on the affordable housing component agreement for the Euclid + Heil residential project from Bill Shopoff’s Shopoff Realty Investments, acting through the entity Euclid & Heil FV Owner, Voice of OC reported. The proposal calls for building 606 units on an 18-acre site at 16300 Euclid Street near Mile Square Regional Park that was once a strawberry field.
The plans call for 304 market-rate apartments and 83 affordable units for seniors in a five-story building and a mix of 219 townhomes and triplexes across the site. The affordable units comprise 15 percent of the total project. The development will be executed in partnership with Lennar.
The state’s income limits define a low-income family of four in Orange County as earning less than $135,350 a year, while a two-person household is considered low-income with less than $108,300 a year.
The project aligns with the city’s inclusionary housing program, which requires affordable housing be a part of new developments to help meet the city’s state-mandated housing goals. The City of Fountain Valley must plan for 4,839 new units of housing, including 2,093 designated as affordable, by October 2029.
The approval didn’t come without pushback from residents, as well as City Council members and the mayor himself, despite the council voting ultimately 4–0 in favor of the development. Planning commissioners similarly voted unanimously to approve the project’s entitlements, but the following month, the City Council convened a special meeting to consider appealing the planning commission’s approval, though it ultimately abandoned that effort.
One of the sticking points for officials on the fence was the single elevator planned for the five-story building, which is expected to have units for seniors on all floors. “What happens if it breaks down?” Mayor Ted Bui said in the July meeting. “How are people with mobility challenges supposed to evacuate in an emergency? A fire, a gas leak, even a power outage?”
“There are a lot of regulations on cities like ours that come straight from the state,” Bui added. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t do better. We still have a responsibility to make sure projects are safe and serve our residents the best they can.”
Councilmember Glenn Grandis noted that the development could also increase traffic congestion and affect parking in the area, though he acknowledged the city didn’t have much of a leg to stand on if it decided to combat these kinds of housing developments with the state.
“Us fighting the state and spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to go fight it makes no sense for the city of Fountain Valley,” Grandis said. “That would be a poor use of our funds, and quite candidly, we would lose.”
Construction timelines for the project have yet to be revealed. City officials will likely have to approve building permits once all the legal and financial agreements are firmed up.