The City of Fountain Valley, California

happen – much different than most cities where city staff has to do all the work. It’s ‘a nice place to live,’ because the community members make it nice and they don’t depend on government to do it all for them. That’s a charming aspect of our little city.” “We have many community champions in town,” adds Le. While the City of Fountain Valley has strong community structures and ties, what it doesn’t have, as Le notes, is a real downtown. And that is something that the city administration is intent on changing via the Fountain Valley Crossings project. “The goal of Fountain Valley Crossings is to establish a gathering place or downtown for the community,” says Le. “Its focus is on improving economic development in Fountain Valley, with a long-term vision of creating a new option for entertainment, retail, and housing in an area that has traditionally been industrial warehouses,” adds Nagel. “The council and the city approved a rezoning of the Crossing’s 162 acres, with the goal of allowing property owners the flexibility to do something new with their properties, instead of just the current light industrial warehouses there now,” Nagel continues. “In short, now you could take, say, a light industrial furniture manufacturer, and if you follow our new zoning rules, you’d have the flexibility to put a restaurant there, or a building with a mix of offices and residential units in it, or a hotel could be put in. It creates new options, whereas, the zoning in the past was limited.” “And since we do not have a downtown core; one of the ideas is that we highlighted a smaller section of these 162 acres as an activity corridor that we hope that, as developers work, they could put in more of a downtown or an entertainment center,” Houston adds. In addition to providing more options for developers, Le explains that as more amenities are made available to city residents, more shops, restaurants and entertainment venues, more of their dollars will be spent within its boundaries. “Our residents are going outside the community to shop and dine,” she reports. “So, we’re trying to create some flexibility to generate opportunities here, so THE C I TY OF FOUNTA IN VALLEY , CAL I FORNI A