The efforts by a Newport Beach-based development company to construct an apartment complex that is three times the density of any residential facility currently existing in Chino accompanied by equally intensive land uses on an adjacent property has triggered considerable alarm among residents who live in the area that will fall in the shadow of those proposed developments.
Moreover, the projects, which have been presented as a package deal under the guise of a single project to the City of Chino, stand at the forefront of a wave of development proposals seeking to use the leverage of state efforts to facilitate the construction of affordable housing to transform San Bernardino County from a landscape featuring suburban-oriented bungalows and two-story single-family residences to one indistinguishable from inner city settings in which multi-story and densely packed structures predominate.
There has been considerable frustration among those who are baffled by the fashion in which Chino city officials appear intent on withholding from the public information about the nature and features of the project, giving them a minimal amount of time to assimilate what the development is to entail and thus preventing them from reacting to it in any meaningful or effective way before it is to be provided with go-ahead by both the planning commission and city council.
Nearly two-and-one-half years ago, on September 19, 2022, Orbis Real Estate Partners of Newport Beach acquired the 451,281.6-square foot – 10.36 acre – Zivelonghi property at the northwest corner of South Euclid Avenue and Schaefer Avenue within the confines of the now-defunct Chino Agricultural Preserve. Orbis paid Margaret Zivelonghi $12,100,000 for the acreage, translating to a cost of $26.59 per square foot or $1,158,301.16 per acre for the property. While the vast majority of those living in the area were not aware of the transaction, who was involved in it and the sale’s implication, those who were more informed and sophisticated with regard to real estate and land development issues recognized that the price paid and other considerations such as zoning and pressure the State of California through its Department of Housing and Community Development is putting on cities throughout California to facilitate the creation of low income housing to ease the perceived housing crisis in the Golden State meant that the property was destined to be developed to a greater degree of intensity than had other property in the general vicinity and the property within the former agricultural preserve that had already been built upon in general.
Previously, there had been little prospect that developers would be able to develop residential property in Chino to a density greater than 16 units per acre, based upon the city’s existing zoning codes and Measure M, which had been adopted by the city’s voters in 1988 and prohibited the Chino City Council from increasing residential density (that is, the number of units per acre) of any land in the city (as of 1988) without approval of the voters  or rezoning non-residential land for residential uses likewise without voter approval.
In the intervening years, the State of California, acting through both its legislature and the California Department of Housing and Community Development, had enacted legislation, rules and strategies at easing both the homelessness and housing crises. One part of that strategy was conducting what is termed a Regional Housing Need Assessment Survey and then mandating that individual jurisdictions throughout the state – essentially counties and cities – make accommodations to allow the development of the number of housing units determined through the survey to be their fair share of the housing statewide needed to adequately house the state’s population. In the case of Chino, the number arrived at by the California Department of Housing and Community Development was that during the eight-year October 2021-to-October 2029 planning cycle it needed to make way for the construction of 6,961 housing units, including 2,107 for very low income homebuyers and 1,281 for low income homebuyers.
In an effort to meet the state’s mandate, Chino officials placed Measure Y before the voters in the June 2022 Primary Election. Measure Y was intended as a means of giving city officials a workaround to Measure M. Measure Y, while not undoing Measure M per se, essentially allowed for the conversion of some property within the city not previously zoned for residential purposes to be placed into so-called overlay zones where the property could be developed for residential purposes. Foremost among these was that land could be designated for “mixed-use,” such that the ground floor of multi-story buildings would house commercial enterprises and the second, third, fourth and perhaps even fifth and sixth floors would serve as apartments.
The voters gave passage to Measure Y. Slightly more than three months later, Orbis moved to acquire the Zivelonghi property, which was scheduled to be abstracted into one of the mixed use overlays.
It was at that point incumbent upon City Hall to revamp Chino’s municipal, zoning and development codes to make clear what sort of intensity of use and density standards were to be in place to govern ongoing and future building in the city. Simultaneously, the city set to work on determining the incentives it would provide the development community with regard to helping it meet the goals set down in the Regional Housing Needs Assessment process. This translated into, essentially, creating a hierarchy of density levels and letting developers know that in order to be able to construct a project at a given level of density, they would need to preserve a specific number of the units they were building for buyers of an income level specified by the state. In this way, for example, the city arrived at a trade-off standard by which, if a developer wanted to construct a project that would entail 20 units per acre, 10 percent of the units therein would need to be earmarked for very low income residents who would be charged a monthly rent affordable to them and that if the developers wanted to build apartments with 26 units to the acre, 16 percent of the units would need to be reserved for those with very low income.
As it turned out, by early 2023, city officials had accomplished some of the preparations they had to engage in to put Measure Y into effect but not all of them. Most pointedly, the updating of the zoning and development codes across the board had not been completed. The zoning code was not updated until April, 2023, nearly 9 months after Measure Y was approved in June of 2022. While the citizens of Chino voted to pass Measure Y, they were not informed on how the zoning code was to be amended until after the fact.
At that point, Orbis was moving forward with laying out the applicational and preparational aspects of its proposal for the development of the 10.3 acres at Euclid and Schaefer. In essence, what the company appears to want to do is subdivide the property into five parcels of 5.1 acres, 1.5 acres, 1.4 acres, 1.3 acres and 0.7 acres and develop 5.1 acres into a 267-apartment four-story complex and accompanying five-story parking structure, convert 1.5 of the acres into a storage facility and both the 1.5 acre parcel and the 1.4 acre parcel into drive-through fast food restaurants, while developing the 0.7 acre parcel into 18,600 square feet of retail space and an accompanying parking lot. In doing so, Orbis engaged in what many perceived to be sleight-of-hand by maintaining that it was not undertaking to construct five different projects but a single project, declaring the density of the apartments to be 26 units per acre.
To outsiders – i.e., those who were not affiliated with Orbis or employed by the city – getting a handle on exactly what was being proposed proved difficult. Though Orbis claimed it was being open and transparent about what it was doing, when asked for the details of its proposal, corporate officers told those asking to check with the city’s planning division. At City Hall, the planning division, which was formerly headed by Marty Liquori and more recently by Warren Morelion, was secretive about what it and Orbis were calling a “project.” What little information that came available to the public, however, made it seem that it was not just a “project” but more like five projects.
Of particular note was that in its representations with regard to the project, Orbis was claiming that the residential density of the project was 26 units per acres. At City Hall, Morelion and the rest of city staff accepted that mathematical representation, seemingly without question. When the project was evaluated by outsiders, however, a different logic and therefore mathematical formula was applied. Those unaffiliated with Orbis or the city divided the 267 apartments not by the 10.36 acres that Orbis had purchased from Margaret Zivelonghi but the 5.1 acres upon which the apartment complex was to be built. That translated into a density of slightly more than 52.35 units to the acre, they said. In addition, they observed, packed onto that 5.1 acres would not only be the 267-unit apartment complex but a five-level, 500-stall parking garage.
Density is of both practical relevance and significance in the project approval process. It has a direct bearing on quality of life issues not just for those living within the residential project itself, but those living proximate to it. It is of consequence with regard to the formulas applied by the planning division, planning commission and city council in the municipality in which a project is proposed when it comes to the evaluation and approval process for the project. Project approval formulas hinging on density include floor area ratio, which is calculated by dividing the total floor area of a building by the total area of the lot. Different jurisdictions have differing standards with regard to how much floor space is allowed on a given lot. As floor area ratio has a bearing on the practical use of the land in question, its aesthetics, livability, the distance of the buildings from the lot lines, sidewalks, parkways and streets, limitations on floor area ratio have become a tool local jurisdictions can use in controlling the intensity of development.
Orbis is calling the five-pronged project Eden. What Orbis is proposing and city officials are facilitating is far closer to their version of Hell than of Paradise, area residents say.
Not only is the density of the residential component of the project on the order of approximately four times that of the existing residential neighborhood in the area, the storage facility is completely incompatible with the surroundings, nearby residents maintain. Of importance, they say, is that on-street parking is not permitted on any of the three main thoroughfares articulating with the project site. Thus, overfill parking at the commercial site, which is to feature 75 parking spaces, will likely move onto the nearby residential streets.
One aspect of the city’s seeming open-armed acceptance of the Eden project is that when the city sought to enforce its own standards relating to the density concession incentives to be provided to Orbis in exchange for offering units to renters at rates that will allow the city to meet the state requirements that it accommodate during the eight year period running from October 2021-to-October 2029 the construction of 2,107 housing units for very low income homebuyers or renters and 1,281 units for low income homebuyers or renters, Orbis balked, claiming that providing 16 percent of its units to low income or very low income residents was not economically feasible. For many Chino residents who are being imposed upon to accept a development they do not feel is compatible with their neighborhood, Orbis’s unwillingness to hold up its end of the bargain that justifies allowing residential projects that exceed all previous existing density standards is enraging. That, by the application of mathematical logic, Orbis is actually seeking, and is apparently on a trajectory to get, permission to build a project at twice the density it is representing the project to feature is for those residents doubly enraging.
One of the nearby residents, Robert Nigg, challenged the project’s march toward approval. He seized upon Chino Development Services Director Warren Morelion’s calculation of the floor area ratio within the Eden project as falling within the permitted parameters for a project within a mixed-use overlay district.
It was Nigg’s contention that Morelion’s calculation of the floor area ratio was either in error or that he had misinterpreted the standard. This miscalculation/misinterpretation, Nigg maintains, is in conflict with the Chino General Plan, the city’s housing element, the Chino Zoning Code and is a flawed, illogical and inconsistent interpretation of the city’s reasoning in advocating for the passage of Measure Y. Nigg also argues that the high density floor area ratio represents an imposition upon the homeowners in the district where the Eden project is to be built, in that the structures that are to be erected will be at a mass and scale incompatible with their surroundings. He made an official challenge of Morelion’s action by appealing it to the Chino Planning Commission.
The planning commission heard that challenge on February 19, before which its members were provided with a report by Chino City Planner Andrea Gilbert. In that report, Gilbert recommended that the commission “[d]eny the appeal and uphold the interpretation of the zoning code made by the director of development services regarding the calculation and enforcement of the floor area ratio in the mixed use overlay district.”
Gilbert contended in the report that Nigg’s assertions that the city’s general plan, zoning code, and overlay zoning are in conflict was incorrect and that density calculations are consistently utilized to control intensity of use in residential uses, while floor area ratio is consistently utilized to control the intensity of non-residential uses. Though Gilbert asserted that Morelion’s “interpretation of the floor area ratio limitations in Section 20.09.090 is consistent with the city’s general plan,” she did not address how it was that the city was allowing Orbis to utilize the full 10.3 acres as the divisor in calculating the residential density when approximately 5.2 of those acres were not being used for residential development but rather commercial uses and a large-scale storage facility.
Among the exhibits presented to the planning commission on February 19 was a letter from Morelion to Nigg dated December 5, 2024 in which the development services director attempted to address Nigg’s “reservations about how the mixed use overlay standards allow for development within the overlay.” In the letter, Morelion rejected Nigg’s challenge of his calculation by claiming that “mixed use overlay is intentionally structured to exclude floor area ratio requirements for residential uses within the overlay.” Morelion in the letter propounded that as an incentive to developers to construct housing stock in areas zoned for mixed use, the city provides an additional 0.25 floor area ratio for the nonresidential portion of mixed use developments, thus allowing a total 1.25 floor area ratio, and stating that the city was striving toward “balancing the goals of development with community needs.”
Nigg contends that the city zoning code allows for an increase in floor area ratio to 1.25 when affordable rental units are included in the project. Nigg argued that since the increase in floor area ratio and density bonus was contingent on residential affordable housing being included in the project, the floor area calculation should include the residential units.
The planning commission, based upon Morelion’s letter to Nigg and Gilbert’s assertions in her staff report denied the appeal in a 5-to-1 vote with Chairman Jimmy Alexandris and commissioners Kevin Cisneroz, Lissa Fraga, Brandon Blanchard and Steve Lewis voting to deny the appeal, Commissioner Lawrence Vieira voting to sustain the appeal and Commissioner Vincent Lopez abstaining.
The commission collectively and the commissioners individually cited no specifics or rationale for denying Nigg’s appeal.
Nigg, citing the commission’s failure to make any findings of fact, as required in the city’s zoning code, has now appealed the planning commission’s denial of his appeal to the city council, which has 60 days to take up the matter.
While many who live in his neighborhood have suggested that Orbis has done something to compromise the professionalism and integrity of city officials, extending from the city’s development services division and planning divisions to its planning commission and city council, Nigg stopped short of casting such aspersions toward City Hall.
“I am most definitely not saying or even implying that anyone at the planning division is on the take, but I do feel that the planning division has become a rubber stamp for the demands of the developers,” Nigg said. “There are questions here that the city needs to answer. Why was the city code changed to accommodate this development? The original draft to the ordinance to amend the zoning code on March 4, 2023 did not include the ability for developers to build a massive four-story storage facility in mixed use overlay districts. Just two weeks later on March 20, 2023, the planning division recommended to the planning commission that the zoning code be amended to include storage facilities, to increase the height of the buildings and to increase the units per acre from 20 to 30 units to 26 to 30 units per acre, while reducing the required number of affordable units by over 50 percent.”
Nigg contends that the zoning code for mixed use overlays was ill-advised and poorly written, resulting in numerous illogical contradictions within the zoning code. Nigg further contends that the 10.36 acre site, with no on-street parking in the area, is not suitable for the development as planned by Orbis. He referenced Government Code Section 65583.2(c)(2)(B), which states “A site larger than 10 acres shall not be deemed adequate to accommodate lower income housing need unless the locality can demonstrate that sites of equivalent size were successfully developed during the prior planning period for an equivalent number of lower income housing units as projected for the site or unless the locality provides other evidence to the department that the site can be developed as lower income housing.” Nigg said, “The city has never provided an intelligent and logical explanation as to why the Orbis project is being allowed to be developed.”
Nigg asked, “Now that there has been a decision to develop it for affordable housing, why is the city allowing a significant part of that property to be developed as a storage facility? Why are they allowing the developer to manipulate and control everything?”
Nigg continued, “It is of course true that the state Department of Housing and Community Development has mandated the city to allow the construction of housing. It did not mandate that the city allow a storage facility in a place it does not belong. The state did not mandate that building heights of up to 55 feet be allowed. The state did not mandate that all 267 rental units be squeezed onto less than one half of the 10.3-acre site.”
Nigg takes issue with what he said was “the city’s pattern of not being transparent and withholding details with regard to development projects until 72 hours before the public hearings at which members of the public are given less than 10 minutes to voice their disapproval.” He said the city is disallowing the public an opportunity to fully understand the implication of what is coming its way and preventing people from being able to provide thoughtful input and request alterations or modifications to features they will have to live with thereafter. He believes that city should have “open communication with the public and not just interact with the developers before completing its review and making the recommendations to the planning commission.”
Of the Eden project, Nigg said, “There are still issues with this project that have not been resolved. There is the inclusion of the storage facility. There is not enough parking. There is the height of the buildings. There is the mass of the buildings. There is the city allowing a smaller percentage of affordable housing, yet allowing not just 26 but over 52 units per acre. I voted for Measure Y, but not for the type of project the developer is proposing to build. The city should and must explain why this is being allowed.”