The La Habra City Council voted down a developer-funded agreement that would have allowed Lennar Homes of California to pay consultants and contract staff to speed the city's internal processing of the proposed West Ridge Hills development. The motion failed, and the council announced, "Motion failed by a vote of 2 nos and 1 yes."

The agreement would not have shortened statutorily required public-review periods, Community and Economic Development Director Susan Kim told the council, but would have let the city hire additional contract staff and request consultants from the city's on-call list to "shorten internal processing time frames." "The proposed agreement would continue to allow full public review of the proposed project and would not reduce any of the associated statutory public review timeframes," Kim said during her presentation.

Why it mattered: the project would replace the West Ridge Golf Course with 534 dwelling units (the staff report lists 142 duplexes, 110 affordable senior apartment units and 282 single-family dwellings) and follows an earlier project on the same site that the council denied in November 2020. Opponents—led at the meeting by residents affiliated with the group Save La Habra—said the request to expedite was premature, that Lennar had caused delays by submitting technical materials late, and that compressing the environmental-impact process could "overlook traffic or safety issues."

Residents at the podium urged the council to pull the consent-item request and require a city-led review. "This is not a routine administrative item. It authorizes a special fast track agreement for Lennar's West Bridal Hills project," said James Lees, a Save La Habra cofounder. "I urge you not to do that," he added, citing concerns that consultants paid by the developer could erode public trust in the review. Maribel Lopez, another Save La Habra speaker, told the council the project had been denied previously and "deserves a full and open conversation, not a quiet approval buried in consent."

Council members questioned staff about precedent and control of the schedule. Kim said the city would select consultants from its on-call list and that Lennar would have a 10-day window to object to a chosen consultant for conflict-of-interest reasons; staff would still manage and oversee any consultant work. Kim also told the council the developer's proposed schedule—moving the EIR and hearings forward by many months—was "unrealistic."

Staff noted that Bowman Consulting was hired in April 2024 to prepare an environmental-impact report for an 18-month schedule with a not-to-exceed cost near $220,000; due to delays in the developer's expanded project description, the EIR schedule as then-stated anticipated Planning Commission consideration in March 2027. The proposed processing agreement would have required Lennar to maintain an initial deposit of at least $40,000 for expedited consultant costs and to reimburse the city for consultant work plus a 25% staff-management surcharge; the agreement also allowed the city to terminate expedited processing if deposits were not timely.

During public comment dozens of residents spoke or emailed the council opposing the expedited schedule, citing environmental, traffic, historic-open-space and transparency concerns. Multiple speakers warned that compressing review "would compress a normal 18 month Bowen timeline down to 7 months" and could leave an incomplete environmental record.

Outcome and next steps: because the motion failed, the city will not execute the developer-funded expedited processing agreement and will continue to process the West Ridge Hills application under its standard timelines and procedures unless a future council action changes that approach.

Provenance: topic introduced by staff at 00:27:31 (Susan Kim staff report) and public comment and vote recorded between 00:42:08 and 00:51:26 (resident speakers and final vote).