SANTA ANA : Council to Study Logan Area’s Future

Longstanding tension between businesses and residents in the Logan neighborhood now threatens to tear the area apart.

Today the City Council will conduct a study session on whether to keep the neighborhood zoned residential or change the zoning to manufacturing.

“The idea is to make [Logan] one or the other,” Councilwoman Patricia A. McGuigan said.

The conflict began in 1929 when the Santa Fe Railroad came to Santa Ana, and the city declared Logan an industrial zone, rather than residential. In 1953, the city prohibited construction of new homes or additions to existing homes. Until then, the neighborhood had been almost exclusively residential.

By 1978, according to a planning report, the neighborhood was mixed about evenly between homes and businesses.

But homeowners complained that a special designation allowing owners to decide between residential or business uses for their properties made it difficult to obtain home improvement loans. In 1987, neighborhood parcels were rezoned residential or industrial depending on their individual use.

Logan’s future recently came into play when the city received an application to open an auto-dismantling business in the neighborhood, McGuigan said. Also contributing was the widening of the Santa Ana Freeway, which created a number of odd-shaped parcels probably not suitable for homes.

“What do we do next?” asked Assistant City Manager Debra Kurita. “The neighborhood does not want more manufacturing, but it will be hard to keep the way it is.”

The core Logan neighborhood consists of more than 100 parcels bordered on the north by the Santa Ana Freeway, on the south by Santa Ana Boulevard, on the east by Lincoln Street and Penn Way, and on the west by Santiago Street.

According to a 1994 planning report, problems in the neighborhood include deteriorating housing and depressed property values.

The study session is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the conference room of the city’s main library.