City, state near deal to allow Angel Stadium sale
Anaheim and state officials are on the verge of resolving their dispute over the city's sale of Angel Stadium, with an agreement announced Monday that would put nearly $96 million of the proceeds toward affordable homes to be built around the city.
The $96 million is equivalent to 30% of the stadium deal's $320 million value, and it would settle the state's concerns that the stadium deal broke an affordable housing law.
In the agreement announced in a news conference with the state attorney general's office, the city does not admit any fault, but state Housing and Community Development Department officials said they're also not rescinding their determination that the city violated the law.
If the Anaheim City Council and a court accept the proposed settlement, the city can proceed with selling the 150-acre stadium property to baseball team owner Arte Moreno's business partnership, SRB Management.
The total sale price of the property stays the same, but where the money goes would change, according to a fact sheet released Monday. The state would require the $96 million to be set aside in an affordablehousing fund that Anaheim would have to spend within five years to create more units.
“This is a huge win for the people of Anaheim and our state,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a news conference announcing the settlement. “And the funds being invested back into the community here come directly from the sale of Angel Stadium.”
Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu touted the settlement as bringing “the largest investment in affordable housing in Anaheim history,” with a target of building at least 1,000 units within five years.
SRB Management spokeswoman Marie Garvey declined to comment.
Here are a few key differences between the existing deal and what would come out of the settlement with the state:
• The deal would still be worth the same overall amount, $320 million; now Anaheim would receive about $246 million in cash and $74 million in public benefits to be built on the property for the city by the developer (including an undetermined number of affordable homes and a 7-acre city park).
• In the original deal, the city would have gotten nearly $150 million in cash and $170 million in public benefits (mostly covering 466 affordable apartments).
• The city plans to spend the same amount of sale proceeds on affordable housing, but it would use the $96 million to build most of the units away from the stadium property, instead of crediting Moreno back the money to build them on-site.
• Nearly $28 million would still go toward affordable homes within the development. It was previously said Moreno would also build 311 additional affordable units, but it is unclear that it will happen.
Even with those changes, the number of affordable homes built may increase: The city estimates it could build up to 1,000 units with the $96 million, plus whatever $28 million can build on-site. The original deal had promised 777 units.
The Surplus Land Act requires government agencies planning to sell public land to first offer it to developers who could build homes for low-income families. City officials have maintained that the act does not apply to the stadium deal.
The settlement (called a “stipulated judgment”) means Anaheim and SRB Management can close escrow on the 150-acre property, which includes the 1960s stadium, acres of surrounding parking and the concert venue City National Grove of Anaheim.
After years of on-andoff discussions about a new lease with Angels Baseball, the Anaheim City Council voted in December 2019 to sell the stadium to SRB. The deal that was eventually hammered out provided the city with cash, badly needed affordable homes and a showpiece park; SRB would have the right to renovate or rebuild the stadium and to develop the remaining property with two hotels, offices, shops and restaurants and up to 5,175 apartments and condos, including what it would have built for the city.
The deal faced criticism from some residents who thought it shortchanged the city, and from housing activists including OC's nonprofit Kennedy Commission, which in 2020 raised questions that prompted the state to scrutinize the stadium sale.
Cesar Covarrubias, the commission's executive director, said Monday that with a number of questions not yet answered, he didn't have enough information to say whether he's satisfied with the proposed agreement.
“From the looks of it, they're just reshuffling the numbers and getting the same deal,” which doesn't do enough for Anaheim residents, he said.
To build affordable homes off the stadium site as promised, the city would either need to find and buy scarce and expensive land or use former redevelopment properties it owns that were already slated for low-income housing, Covarrubias said.
It also means workers would have to commute from elsewhere to likely modestly paid jobs in the stadium development's stores and restaurants, he said, adding, “Why shouldn't families be able to live where they work?”