Laserfiche WebLink
<br />February 24th, 2025 <br /> <br /> RE: Draft SD-84 Zoning Code Comment Period for February 24, 2025 <br /> <br />Dear Planning Commission: <br /> We, the undersigned organizations and residents, submit this letter in support of the <br />SD-84 Transit Zoning Code (TZC). OCEJ, GREEN-MPNA, community partners, and the <br />residents of Santa Ana see this as the next step in phasing out polluting industries in the city, and <br />improving our air quality. We appreciate the city’s efforts to reduce air polluting industries that <br />pose a risk to the community’s health by placing a pause on new permits for heavy industrial <br />uses, prohibiting the expansion of nonconforming industrial use, establishing a set of operating <br />standards, removing the exemption for storage facilities, and eliminating M1 and M2 zoning in <br />the Logan and Lacy neighborhoods. We fully support the goal of the proposed regulations <br />protecting the health, safety, and welfare of existing and future residents of the TZC through the <br />use of the new amortization process to phase out and discontinue high-polluting nonconforming <br />industrial uses in the community. We demand that the City be consistent with the general plan <br />policies that are aimed to correct past land use planning practices that have placed an inequitable <br />environmental and health burden on certain neighborhoods now termed disadvantaged <br />communities. <br /> GREEN-MPNA and OCEJ would like to see a similar moratorium set in place in <br />Southeast Santa Ana. The Madison Park, Cedar Evergreen Co-op, Cornerstone Village, Delhi, <br />and nearby neighborhoods have an overconcentration of industries that contribute to the <br />continuation of air pollution from the nearby freeways and emissions of harmful toxins from <br />industrial use in the surrounding areas. Residents from the area have made complaints in the past <br />and have been silenced or unheard. In some instances, residents do not feel comfortable making <br />complaints in fear of retaliation from the city. In 2022, a UCI study examined the correlation of <br />pediatric asthma rates in Santa Ana to the proximity of an industrial source. This study <br />determined that students who lived less than 0.5km from an industrial source were more likely to <br />have pediatric asthma. We also know that Southeast Santa Ana is in the highest percentile <br />bracket for pollution burden based on the CalEnviroScreen 4.0 map which confirms it is <br />necessary for these types of zoning changes in our community as well. We ask that you hear the <br />  <br />Planning Commission 1 – 241 3/6/2025 <br />