Santa  Ana Urban Planning with EJ

Background

A city's General Plan is a blueprint for development; identifying what land and buildings will be used for what. Thanks to SB-1000, Santa Ana planners were required to address environmental justice issues in Santa Ana, and incorporate strategic solutions to mitigate pollution burdens. However, after reviewing their General Plan draft in August of 2020, members of the community and our staff realized that the city failed to adequately address several environmental justice issues, such as soil lead contamination, air quality, access to public open space, and more. Therefore, OCEJ along with several other community based organizations, community leaders, researchers, and scientists came together and demanded that the city follow the SB-1000 requirements and incorporate our grassroots based solutions. The city immediately pushed back and refused to incorporate our recommendations because it would delay their timeline, and emphasized that the city must quickly adopt a new General Plan since the last comprehensive update was in 1982. At the time, Miguel Pulido was the Mayor of Santa Ana,  a lame duck who wanted to claim credit for a General Plan Update without actually taking the time to analyze what would be best for residents in the long haul. 

Two months after their draft release, the California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, send the city a letter to further pressure the city to comply with SB1000 and work with community organizations and regional partners to protect our most vulnerable neighborhoods and to not rush through this process. It then took us 2 years of meetings with stakeholders to finally incorporate our grassroot solutions into the General Plan, and was officially adopted in 2022. Overall, the City of Santa Ana did not incorporate environmental justice solutions internally from their staff. Instead, it was community leaders, grassroots organizations, scientists, and your fellow neighbors who bravely advocated for a better, safer, and cleaner Santa Ana. Please view our additional resources below for more information. 

Urban planning has a significant impact on our livelihood and we are committed to keeping you informed in latest news and how you can become involved. More recently in 2024, the City of Santa Ana is updating their Zoning Code while following the General Plan principles & guidelines.