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CITY COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
City of Anaheim
PLANNING AND BUILDING DEPARTMENT
DATE: MARCH 24, 2026
FROM: PLANNING AND BUILDING DEPARTMENT
SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR REHEARING – ANAHEIM HILLS FESTIVAL PROJECT DEVELOPMENT APPLICATION NO. 2023-00043
ATTACHMENT (Y/N): YES ITEM # 24
GOVERNMENT CODE § 84308 APPLIES: YES
RECOMMENDATION:
That the City Council, by Motion, deny the request for a rehearing of the City Council’s administrative decisions associated with the Anaheim Hills Festival Project (DEV2023-00043), which was considered at the public hearing held on January 13, 2026, with the project consideration concluding with City Council action on March 3, 2026.
DISCUSSION:
On November 17, 2025, the Planning Commission recommended that the City Council certify and approve the Final Environmental Impact Report No. 358 and associated Mitigation Monitoring Program, adopt a Statement of Overriding Considerations, and approve the land use entitlements associated with the request.
This item was originally noticed for the December 16, 2025 City Council meeting.
During the Additions/Deletions portion of the agenda, the City Council voted to continue the item to the January 13, 2026 meeting. On January 13, 2026, the City Council commenced the public hearing for the Anaheim Hills Festival project (“Project”), completing public comments, initiating discussion and ultimately continuing action to the February 3, 2026 meeting. On February 3, 2026, at the request of the applicant, the City Council voted to continue the item to March 3, 2026. At its meeting on March 3, 2026, the City Council resumed discussion and ultimately approved the Project, with all associated entitlements, on a 4-3 vote, with the adoption of the related ordinances pending second reading on March 24, 2026.
On March 10, 2026, Mr. Andrew Winger (the “Petitioner”) submitted a Request for Rehearing and Declaration of Merit (“Rehearing Request” attached hereto as Attachment 1). The Rehearing Request is made pursuant to Section 1.12.100 of the Anaheim Municipal Code, which provides that “any person or entity aggrieved by any administrative order or decision made by the City Council as a result of a Request for Rehearing - Development Application No. DEV2023-00043 March 24, 2026
proceeding in which by law a hearing is required to be given, evidence is required to be taken and discretion in the determination of facts is vested in the City Council, shall, as a prerequisite to seeking any judicial review or relief relating to such order or decision, request a rehearing of such matter by the City Council whenever any of the following grounds exist.” Specifically, the Anaheim Municipal Code lists four grounds for rehearing as follows:
1. That the City Council has proceeded without, or in excess, of its jurisdiction;
2. That there was not a fair hearing and the petitioner was thereby deprived of any rights;
3. That there was a prejudicial abuse of discretion by the City Council within the meaning of Section 1094.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the State of California; or
4. That there was relevant evidence which, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, could not have been produced by the petitioner, or which was improperly excluded by the City Council, at the hearing.
The Petitioner’s Rehearing Request makes two claims: (1) that there was not a fair hearing and the Petitioner was thereby deprived of any rights (“Grounds 2”; Attachment 1, Item 6); and (2) that there was prejudicial abuse of discretion by the City Council (“Grounds 3”; Attachment 1, Items 1-5). The details of the claims made by the Petitioner and the related responses are provided below.
Claims related to Grounds 2
The Petitioner’s Statement of Facts in support of the Rehearing Request raises the following topics as to Grounds 2 (summarized from Attachment 1, Item 6). As described in detail below, the facts and evidence in the record of the Project proceedings do not support the claims made in the Petitioner’s Rehearing Request for Grounds 2.
Item #6: 1) The City Council closed the public hearing after the January 13, 2026 meeting, despite continuing deliberations and consideration of additional information related to the Development Agreement; 2) Members of the public were not permitted to provide testimony within the official public hearing for the Project. As a result, members of the public were prevented from presenting comments and evidence within the record associated with the Project approval; 3) The Project applicant was afforded the opportunity to delay proceedings and provide additional information and revisions relating to the Development Agreement, while the public was denied a comparable opportunity to provide testimony.
Response: At the January 13, 2026 City Council public hearing, after several hours of public testimony and additional discussion regarding the Project with City staff, the City Council closed the public hearing and voted to continue its consideration to the February 3, 2026 meeting. While its discussion and consideration of the item was ultimately continued to March 3, 2026, several members of the public provided comments and sent written correspondence to the City Council at each of the City Council meetings following the January 13, 2026 public hearing. Below is a summary of verbal and written comments pertaining to the Project that were received at each of the City Council meetings:
January 13, 2026: 41 speakers; 58 emails
Request for Rehearing - Development Application No. DEV2023-00043 March 24, 2026
January 27, 2026: 1 speaker; 7 emails
February 3, 2026: 21 speakers; 100 emails
February 24, 2026: 4 speakers; 34 emails
March 3, 2026: 44 speakers; 323 emails
A total of 522 emails were received by the City, which were distributed to the City Council and added to the Project record. City staff reviewed all public testimony and correspondence received in advance of the March 3, 2026 meeting, and confirmed that reopening of the public comment portion of the public hearing was not required.
At the March 3, 2026 meeting, the Mayor announced at the beginning of the general public comments portion of the agenda that the public hearing for the Project would not be reopened, but additional testimony would be received and considered during the general public comment portion of the agenda, and that all comments would be included in the Project record. As noted above, 44 people spoke during general public comments relating to the Project and were taken into consideration by the City Council. Beginning with the January 13, 2026 meeting, the City Council took into consideration a total of 111 verbal comments.
Regarding the topic of additional information and revisions to the Development Agreement, no changes were made to the draft Development Agreement since the document was made available to the public in advance of the January 13, 2026 meeting, and no new information, including changes in the environmental analysis, was provided that warranted reopening of the public hearing. Although the applicant notified the City on February 26, 2026 that a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) had been signed between the applicant and labor union, this action is not related to, required by, or governed by the entitlements or the proposed Development Agreement.
In addition, the applicant was not provided an opportunity to make an additional presentation to the City Council during the March 3, 2026 meeting but was available to answer questions from members of the City Council, of which none were posed.
Claims related to Grounds 3
The Petitioner’s Statement of Facts in support of the Rehearing Request makes the following claims as to Grounds 3 (summarized and separated by Attachment 1, Items 1-5). As described in detail below, the facts and evidence in the record of the Project proceedings do not support the claims made in the Petitioner’s Rehearing Request for Grounds 3.
Item #1: The City Council approved the Festival Project without considering material wildfire evacuation information that the City is now preparing as part of the unreleased Wildfire Evacuation Plan.
Response: The City was awarded a grant to prepare the City of Anaheim Wildfire Evacuation Plan (City Wildfire Evacuation Plan) in September 2024. On March 25, 2025, the City Council approved an agreement with the consulting firm Dudek to develop the plan, and a kick-off meeting was held in April 2025. The plan has not yet been finalized, released for public review, or presented to the City Council for consideration.
Request for Rehearing - Development Application No. DEV2023-00043 March 24, 2026
The Project was submitted in August 2023, and the Notice of Preparation (NOP) for the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was prepared and circulated in January 2024. The City held a Scoping Meeting in February 2024, where members of the public were able to review and provide comments on the topics that were to be analyzed in the EIR, including wildfire. The NOP serves as the formal starting point for the environmental review process under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and establishes the environmental setting, which are the existing conditions under which the range of impacts are analyzed in the EIR. The EIR was prepared based on the laws, regulations, and accepted analytical practices in effect at the time the NOP was issued.
Petitioner suggests, but provides no information in support thereof, that the Festival Evacuation Time Travel Analysis is incomplete or unreliable because the analysis was prepared by the same consulting firm that is preparing the in-progress City Wildfire Evacuation Plan. The Project applicant is responsible for preparing the technical studies required for the EIR analysis, which are submitted to the City for review. The Festival Evacuation Time Analysis was prepared by the applicant’s consultant, Dudek, and was reviewed by City staff and the City’s traffic peer review consultant, Linscott, Law, & Greenspan (LLG), for technical adequacy, as well as the City’s environmental peer review consultant, Psomas, for CEQA adequacy. There is no conflict of interest with Dudek preparing the Festival Evacuation Time Travel Analysis, as the Project technical study was peer-reviewed separately by the City’s peer review consultants and ultimately approved by City staff for adequacy. Following multiple reviews and coordination with the Public Works Department, Anaheim Fire and Rescue, and Anaheim Police Department, the Festival Evacuation Travel Time Analysis (Festival Evacuation Analysis) for the Project was deemed final in May 2025, one month after the initial kick-off meeting for the City Wildfire Evacuation Plan.
The Festival Evacuation Analysis was included as a technical study in the Draft EIR, which was made available for public review, and is included as part of the Project record. The technical analysis that was completed for the Project meets the requirements for CEQA and analyzes the proposed Project’s impact on evacuation time in the area based on a worst-case wildfire scenario.
The City Council is not required to delay consideration or approval of the Project pending completion of the City Wildfire Evacuation Plan as the plan has not been finalized, released for public review, or adopted by the City Council. The environmental review for the Project was based on the regulatory frameworks, methodologies, and studies available at the time the NOP was circulated in January 2024. The project-specific Festival Evacuation Travel Time Analysis was included in the Draft EIR and meets CEQA requirements for analyzing wildfire evacuation impacts. Further, while the in-progress City Wildfire Evacuation Plan would inform future citywide planning efforts once finalized and adopted, it is not considered new information triggering further environmental review at this time because whether it will be adopted is speculative and substantial evidence supports the EIR’s conclusion as to the Projects impacts on wildfire evacuation.
Item #2: “The City Council’s approval of the Festival development project was influenced by impermissible considerations relating to private labor negotiations between the developer and the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters.”
Request for Rehearing - Development Application No. DEV2023-00043 March 24, 2026
Response: During the January 13, 2026 public hearing, some members of the City Council encouraged the applicant to continue to work with the organized labor to negotiate an agreement, however, the City cannot, and did not, require the use of union labor as a condition of approving a project or include a project labor agreement in the terms of the Development Agreement.
Additionally, the City did not review or receive a copy of the signed agreement between the parties as part of the Project consideration.
Item #3: The approvals associated with the Festival Project included, among other actions, a zoning change and related legislative approvals and the January 13, 2026 hearing did not conform to the City’s stated policy governing testimony in legislative public hearings that allow five minutes of public comment relating to legislative items.
Response: The City’s rules of procedure establish different time limits on those persons wishing to present testimony at a public hearing, depending on whether the hearing is quasi- legislative or quasi-judicial. For quasi-judicial matters, the procedures provide time allocations designed to ensure due process for those most directly affected: (1) the applicant (20 minutes for an initial presentation and 10 minutes for rebuttal) and (2) residents within the noticed area (10 minutes). Other members of the public are given 3 minutes each. For quasi-legislative matters, all speakers generally receive five minutes each, giving far less time to those most directly impacted by the project.
The Project public hearing involved a series of quasi-legislative approvals as well as two quasi- judicial determinations. In such circumstances, the City’s consistent practice has been to apply the quasi-judicial public hearing standards so that the applicant and the residents most directly affected by the project are afforded the enhanced time allocations. The procedures used during the January 13, 2026 public hearing therefore reflected the City’s established practice for mixed matters and fell within the City Council’s authority to manage the hearing.
The procedures were also consistent with governing law. The Brown Act permits legislative bodies to adopt and enforce reasonable regulations governing public testimony, including time limits, so long as members of the public are afforded a meaningful opportunity to be heard. The request does not demonstrate that the procedures used deprived the public of a meaningful opportunity to participate.
In any event, the request fails to allege prejudice of the type required to invalidate the City Council’s decision. Alleged procedural errors in land use proceedings do not warrant reversal unless the complaining party demonstrates that the error was prejudicial, that the party suffered substantial injury from the error, and that a different result would have been probable absent the error. The request makes no such showing. It does not identify any testimony that was excluded, any information that the City Council failed to consider, or how the City Council’s ultimate decision would likely have been different.
Moreover, the City Council continued to receive extensive public comment regarding the Project after the January 13, 2026 public hearing. Four City Council meetings were held following that hearing, culminating in the City Council’s consideration and vote on March 3, 2026. At each of those meetings, the Council received public testimony during the regular public comment portion Request for Rehearing - Development Application No. DEV2023-00043 March 24, 2026
of the agenda, during which each speaker was allotted three minutes. Numerous members of the public (including members who spoke during the public hearing on January 13th) addressed the City Council about the Project during those meetings. Those comments were received, considered by the City Council, and will be included as part of any administrative record.
Item #4: “The City Council’s finding that the project provides adequate parking is not supported by substantial evidence and relies on contradictory and incomplete information in the administrative record”, the public was deprived of a meaningful opportunity to comment on the Parking Demand Study because it was not included in the Draft EIR, and the Parking Demand Study relies heavily on self-selected and non-independent data that cannot be representative of conditions in Anaheim Hills.
Response: The Draft EIR analyzed the Project’s potential impacts for all topics identified under CEQA Guidelines. Parking is not an environmental impact that is required to be analyzed under CEQA and therefore, the Parking Demand Study was not included as a technical appendix to the Draft EIR. The Parking Demand Study was included as an attachment to the Planning Commission and City Council staff reports, which members of the public could review in advance of the meetings and provide comment prior to deliberation on the Project. The Planning Commission staff report and its attachments, including the Parking Demand Study, were made available for public review on November 13, 2025, and remain unchanged. This provided the public with sufficient advanced opportunity to review the study and submit comments during the public hearing process on the Project.
Staff has reviewed the claim regarding inconsistent information presented in the Draft EIR and Parking Demand Study for the Project. As previously mentioned, the Draft EIR includes analysis of the Project’s potential environmental impacts relating to a variety of topics prescribed by CEQA, of which, parking is not a required topic. The Draft EIR includes a Project Description, which provides a general overview of the Project’s characteristics. In this section of the Draft EIR, the parking summary provided incorrectly noted the required parking for the Project as 1,075 spaces. The Parking Demand Study that was prepared for the Project includes the correct parking required for the Project, based on the City’s multiple-family residential parking requirements, as 963 spaces.
The incorrect calculation of required parking for the Project in the Project Description of the Draft EIR does not change the significance of Project’s impacts on the environment and its correction did not warrant recirculation of the EIR because the Parking Demand Study, which is the document that analyzes the reduction in parking and shared parking for the mixed-use development, remains accurate despite the above-mentioned discrepancy related to total required parking for the Project.
The Parking Demand Study includes a detailed analysis of parking demands for multiple-family and commercial uses compared to the proposed number of parking spaces. This includes comparison of the City’s parking requirements, industry standards from Urban Land Institute (ULI), vehicle ownership trends based on the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, as well as a survey of existing properties that are owned and managed by the Project applicant. The survey of existing properties provides comparable data based on property management and current multiple- family trends. The properties that were surveyed are similar to the proposed Project in unit type and count, and proximity to commercial shopping centers. The data in the Parking Demand Study Request for Rehearing - Development Application No. DEV2023-00043 March 24, 2026
was reviewed by the City’s peer-review consultants, Psomas and LLG, as well as City staff and was determined to be adequate for consideration of reduced parking requirements and shared parking for the mixed-use development.
Item #5: The City failed to provide access to requested records necessary for meaningful participation in the decision-making process by not producing internal records requested, including communications, memoranda, staff analysis, and Fire Authority review materials reflecting how studies were evaluated, interpreted, or relied upon by City staff in the course of reviewing the Project.
Response: The City has received numerous Public Record Requests associated with the Project and has responded to those requests as prescribed by the California Public Records Act. Internal memoranda, internal communication, and draft documents are exempt from public disclosure pursuant to the California Public Records Act. Due to the volume and complexity of the requests, records that were responsive to the requests, and allowed to be publicly disclosed, are being provided to requestors on a rolling basis.
Conclusion
Based on the foregoing, staff recommends that the Petitioner’s Request for Rehearing be denied.
IMPACT ON BUDGET:
There is no budgetary impact. The Petitioner paid the fee necessary to schedule this rehearing request.
Respectfully submitted,
Heather Allen
Planning and Building Director
Attachment:
1. Request for Rehearing and Declaration of Merit from Andrew Winger (Petitioner)