Development plans for West Coyote Hills, a 760-home and retail project proposed on an abandoned oil field in Fullerton, were struck down Tuesday night by Fullerton’s City Council.
Zoning changes and other entitlements needed for the 510-acre project, slated to be the largest housing development the North County city’s seen in nearly a decade, was denied by a 3-2 vote.
West Coyote Hills was expected to create some 1,800 jobs, with about half of those construction-related, according to officials with Pacific Coast Homes, a unit of Chevron Corp. that’s developing the project.
But the development faced major opposition from environmentalists and others who see it as taking the last piece of wild, open space in the largely developed city.
The swing vote fell to Councilman Shawn Nelson, who said he had several issues with the development agreement between Pacific Coast Homes and the city, in particular the large amount of concessions the city were “wrenching out of” the developer, according to the Orange County Register.
“I’m not in a position to support this tonight,” Nelson said.
Next steps for the property, where redevelopment plans have been in the works since the 1970’s, are unclear. It is possible Pacific Coast Homes could come back to the council with a revised development plan.
For now, the largest housing development moving forward in North County is the La Floresta project in Brea.
Brea’s City Council last week approved plans for the 1,357-home project on the site of a former Unocal Corp. research center.
