Residents Lose to UDR Apartments
by Dale Tyler

Residents in Mission Viejo lost and United Dominion Realty (UDR) won when the Mission Viejo City Council voted 3 (Ury, Leckness, Kelley) – 2 (Reardon, Schlicht) to allow UDR to increase the number of units at the Los Alisos site from 250 to 320 units.

The outcome of the appeal of the Planning Commission's decision was a foregone conclusion. At the start of the council's deliberations on this matter, the City Attorney advised the council members that they must disclose any contacts that might have influenced any council members. Cathy Schlicht and Rhonda Reardon gave extensive accounts of their contacts with residents and UDR and reported they received no donations from UDR or developer interests.

Ury said nothing and Leckness and Kelley said little about their contacts regarding this matter. Kelley tried to claim she received no money from UDR. However, they were all paid directly by interests that supported UDR or similar projects. Ury has taken $10,600, Kelley took $4,249 and Leckness took $1,000. It should be noted that Leckness has only been in office a short time..

The city attorney cautioned all of the council members that they must come into the discussion with an open mind and have no preconceptions that would prevent their reaching a conclusion based on the information presented available to the public prior to the meeting or presented at the meeting.

However, it was clear from the start of the presentation by Leckness that he had already made up his mind. With the enthusiasm of a paid cheerleader, he gave a glowing presentation that tried to portray the 320-unit apartment project as looking better than the already approved 250-unit for-sale (condominium) project. Residents in the Palmia retirement community had previously gotten an agreement from UDR to build 250 for-sale units on the old Kmart site.

UDR wanted to break their promise to the surrounding residents, so they began a stealth campaign to get their new project approved. City staff did the minimum notifications required by law and thus almost no one knew about the project until it came before the Planning Commission. Until that time, UDR and the city staff kept the secret as well as they could by refusing to meet with nearby residents to get their input. Even the CEQA document was circulated to the minimum possible audience. The involvement of the city staff was and is shameful.

After Leckness finished, Ury tried to give a history of real estate development in Mission Viejo with a focus on apartment projects built since 2000. He did his best to personally vilify and berate citizens of Mission Viejo who have worked hard to prevent inappropriate rezoning and urbanization of our city. Ury did this to shift blame from Lance MacLean and himself, when they scuttled a plan being developed by Planning Commission Members Morton and Lonsinger that would have provided for lower-density development of low-income housing without having to significantly rezone large parcels for more than 1,000 apartments as is currently planned. During his presentation, Ury distorted so much of the history of rezoning in Mission Viejo, that it was hardly recognizable to an informed viewer.

When he finished his presentation, he tried to claim that if the UDR project was not increased to 320 units, that the city would once again be sued to invalidate the City's Housing Element as was done in 2007. However, no evidence of this was actually presented at the meeting. One reason this might not have been stated was that Ury, Kelley and Leckness had their marching orders, and it would have looked too much like blackmail if the quid pro quo was stated explicitly.

Many residents attended the meeting, with more than 75 people still in the audience at 8:30, more than two hours after the discussions began. There were many speakers who asked good questions and indicated that they opposed the project. One person brought a petition with 918 unduplicated signatures from residents immediately surrounding the project. Only four people spoke in favor of the project, one representing the Apartment Owners PAC, one who is the representative of the poverty lobby, a person who seem to dislike homeownership and who claimed apartments were the future of the city and a lady who made no actual statement in favor of the project but who seemed to like the look of the project. Everyone else who spoke was opposed.

When it was time for Kelley to speak, she rambled on about how nice the units would be. She tried to make the point that of the 320 units 48 would be subsidized to be “affordable” for families making less than $73,850 or, in some cases, $46,150. She then attacked those who said they were concerned about the increased density, stopping just short of calling concerned residents bigots or elitists. It almost sounded like she was “channeling” Lance MacLean.

In contrast to the cheer-leading, scare tactics and veiled insults, Schlicht and Reardon stayed on point by asking detailed questions about the project. Schlicht went through Ury's presentation point by point and demonstrated the inaccuracies at each stage. Reardon asked UDR about their supposed contacts and “outreach” and it became clear that UDR did no outreach, despite their initial claims to the contrary.

The city staff could have prevented this increase in density if they had insisted on a development agreement for the Kmart property when it was initially rezoned. I'd like to know why this was not done. One thing we can do is to put pressure on city staff to do a better job in notifying affected residents and to protect neighbors' interests by always having an executed development agreement for every project involving new housing.

We lost this one, and the three prevailing council members earned their campaign contributions (or bribes – your choice). Look for more payoffs to Ury, Leckness and Kelly in the upcoming years.

At the end of the UDR agenda item, Leckness said he gets really angry when someone suggests he sold his vote. I bet this article will make him mad. However it is documented that he took $1,000 from the South Coast Apartment Owners Association on 10/17/2010, as reported on Leckness's FPPC form 460. This group collects money from developers and makes political contributions to candidates they want to influence.