The Fountain Valley City Council will consider next week the fate of a proposed new housing development planned for the site of the former Boomers! family entertainment center.
The City Council will take up an appeal on Tuesday, July 15, regarding the project that the planning commission greenlit on July 11.
The development was submitted by the Holland Partner Group in March 2025 and is located at 16800 Magnolia St., just off the 405 freeway. It would take the place of the former Boomers! location — a family center with arcades, mini-golf, and go-kart racing — which closed in 2020.
The proposed plan consists of two seven-story buildings and two seven-story parking structures. There will be 4,460 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor and 657 residential apartment units.
Additionally, the housing development proposed an affordable housing agreement that will secure 78 deed-restricted low-income units.
The City Council considered initiating a council appeal of the planning commission’s approval of the development on June 23. The meeting ended without the council coming to a decision, which allowed the planning commission’s approval to remain intact until the council revisited the appeal.
The appeal being considered at Tuesday’s meeting was initiated by the Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility, a group that challenges development projects believed to violate environmental regulations.
In a letter to the planning commission, SAFER said it “requests that the Planning Commission refrain from taking any action on the Project” and instead produce a study for a project-specific environmental impact report (EIR).
The appeal said there could be significant impacts that were not considered under the plan’s final environmental impact report and that a new EIR is necessary for the plan to be approved.
Principal planner Steven Ayers and his team conducted an analysis of the appeal, which found insufficient explanations for why the planning commission’s approval should be revoked by the City Council. Ayers recommended that the council conduct a public hearing and deny SAFER’s appeal to reaffirm the planning commission’s approval, he wrote in the analysis.
This would once again reinstate the planning commission’s approval of the 16800 Magnolia St. project.
The housing development is part of an effort to provide 4,839 additional residential units to Fountain Valley by 2029, mandated by the state of California’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment. The RHNA follows State Housing Law and quantifies housing needs in cities throughout California.
The 16800 Magnolia St. housing development is one of many plans that the Fountain Valley Planning Commission is considering to reach the number of required housing units.
The commission also recently approved the Euclid and Heil project — a high-density residential development with 626 units — located on a former strawberry field at 16300 Euclid St.
The Fountain Valley City Council meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. Meetings are held at the Fountain Valley City Hall, located at 10200 Slater Ave.