Bucolic Trabuco Canyon Faces Test of Growth

When Nancy Moreton and her husband moved from Northern California eight years ago, they sought a quiet corner of Orange County to raise chickens and keep a horse for their two young children. They found Trabuco Canyon, a rustic hamlet of a few hundred dwellings in the hills east of Mission Viejo on the edge of Cleveland National Forest.

“We knew instantly this was the place,” the 33-year-old Moreton recalled. “There is a sense of a small community here that you don’t find elsewhere in this county.”

But Moreton, like many of her neighbors, believes that her rural life style is in danger. From the brush-covered ridge above her canyon home, a sea of red clay tile roofs in Rancho Santa Margarita is plainly visible in the distance. And each year, the development that Moreton finds so threatening edges closer.

“We’ve got to stop it,” she warned recently, “or it will swallow us up.”

But time may be running out on the residents of Trabuco Canyon and their struggle to halt further encroachment on a community that is a throwback to a simpler, more neighborly era in Orange County. By summer’s end, the five-member Orange County Board of Supervisors is expected to decide whether to allow up to 4,833 new homes to be built in an area where only 300 now exist, most of those clustered along several winding roads in Trabuco Canyon.

One of the roads, Live Oak Canyon Road, is designated a scenic county highway because of the centuries-old canopy of oak trees that shade long stretches of the two-lane road. At least some of the trees, which are among more than 11,000 oaks found in the Trabuco Canyon area, may face uprooting for widening of the road under more than one development option now being considered.

“This will be a major test case of the county’s growth-management plan and this board’s willingness to protect environmentally sensitive areas,” predicted Ray Chandos, a Trabuco Canyon homeowner and chairman of an 11-member advisory panel of canyon residents and major landholders reviewing development options for the area.

The vast majority of land in the 6,300-acre Foothill/Trabuco Specific Plan area is rugged and undeveloped and is viewed by residents and environmentalists as a critical buffer between the rapidly urbanizing Saddleback Valley and Cleveland National Forest in the Santa Ana Mountains. It is also home to an eclectic mix of longtime canyon dwellers, artisans, laborers and professionals who commute to the cities but retreat each day to the quiet and simplicity of the backcountry.

Supervisors acknowledged the geographic importance of the area in March when they designated the chaparral and oak tree-studded slopes and ridges a “rural transition zone” in the county’s sweeping growth-management plan. But what that means, and, more significantly, how that translates into future development in areas such as Trabuco Canyon, is still a matter of widespread debate among county officials. And many observers believe that what the supervisors decide about the Foothill-Trabuco area will set the standard for growth in the county’s dwindling rural areas.

The County Environmental Management Agency is scheduled to announce its recommendation for development in the Foothill-Trabuco area Wednesday at a meeting with canyon residents atthe Trabuco Canyon fire station. The County Planning Commission will begin hearings on plans for the area Tuesday, and the Board of Supervisors is expected to consider the issue in September.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, whose 3rd District includes the Foothill-Trabuco area, said Monday that he is still undecided on how much development to approve for the area. “I’ll reserve judgment until a later date,” said Vasquez, a key figure in the debate because of his sway over other board members on development issues in his district.

Vasquez appointed an 11-member advisory panel of canyon residents and major landholders to review development options for the area. But the panel has split over how much growth is appropriate, prompting some committee members to join local activists in issuing an independent recommendation for minimal development of single-family homes in an effort to prevent high-density construction on ridgelines and canyon slopes.

Diana Glass, a canyon activist who helped rally residents last spring against large-scale development in the area, warned: “What happens in Trabuco will set the tone for the 1990s in other canyons like Silverado and Modjeska. It will be very telling.”

Despite their preference for little or no growth in the hills that shield their bucolic canyon, Glass and others acknowledge that growth is inevitable. It has already begun. A new concrete-and-stucco post office and commercial strip opened a few years ago on Trabuco Canyon Road. Traffic on Live Oak Canyon Road is nearing capacity.

“The issue really is rate of growth,” said Glass, a founding member of Save the Oaks and Slopes, a group that posted signs and tied yellow ribbons to oak trees along Live Oak Canyon Road to draw attention to efforts by residents to preserve the area’s rural character. “We believe landowners have a right to build on their property, but not at the expense of ruining this place.”

County planners say they have no intention of destroying the area’s rustic charm. In fact, they contend that the Foothill/Trabuco Specific Plan is an attempt to chart and regulate all future growth from Santiago Canyon Road on the north to Rancho Santa Margarita on the south, and eastward to Cleveland National Forest. If adopted, the plan will establish limits for the entire 6,300 acres by setting new zoning standards and determining how many new roads can be built in the area.

There are 30 development projects in varying stages of planning and approval that could result in 4,833 new housing units being built in the Foothill-Trabuco area, county officials said. Development on that level would require a new four-lane road that opponents warn would become a major commuter path through an area still rich with wildlife and old oak trees.

“There is a tremendous amount of private property in this area, and in my view it would be unreasonable not to allow any new development,” said Lynn Dosherry, chief planner for the Environmental Management Agency’s advance planning division. “The question is, how much development? We are trying to set some guidelines” with the specific plan.

Since last fall, county planners have been evaluating four options for growth in the area, ranging from 536 housing units on one- to four-acre lots to 4,833 units on substantially smaller, more densely clustered plots. Dosherry said high-density development, such as is found in Portola Hills or Rancho Santa Margarita, is not suited for the Foothill-Trabuco area. But to determine what is acceptable, Dosherry said, county officials must decide what level of development is appropriate for an area designated as “rural.”

“ Rural means one thing in Kansas, and it means quite another here in Orange County,” Dosherry said. “In Foothill-Trabuco, I’m not sure that tract housing in the traditional sense . . . is what most people would consider rural.”

An environmental impact report recommended that to best preserve the area’s rural profile, the county limit development to 536 new homes. The report, done for the county, concluded that anything beyond that would have a “significant adverse environmental impact” on an area once considered “the boonies” but now squarely in the path of the kind of development that has marked Orange County as one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions.

Roxie Lucarelli, who owns 142 acres in Trabuco Canyon, believes that large property owners in the area are being “unfairly lumped together as insensitive and dollar-hungry.” Lucarelli, along with several partners, built the new post office and commercial center, and eventually he wants to develop single-family homes on his property, including the equestrian center near the entrance to O’Neill Regional Park. He wants to subdivide his property into one-acre lots or larger, the type of project he believes is in keeping with the area’s “wide-open look and feel.”

“But people don’t believe that. They look at you as a developer, and they immediately think Portola Hills, rows and rows of houses,” said Lucarelli, referring to the Portola Hills 2,300-unit project along El Toro Road near Cook’s Corner. “People are mad at what they see happening in other areas, and we’ve been the victims.”

Distrust has emerged among some Trabuco residents. There are complaints that the 11-member advisory committee, which has met more than 30 times during the past two years, does not adequately reflect the residents’ interests. They contend that the advisory committee is dominated by appointees who represent land development interests.

“It is definitely skewed,” committee Chairman Chandos said of the group appointed by Vasquez. “It’s true we are simply an advisory committee. But the makeup of the committee sent a negative signal to residents that the county isn’t interested in their concerns.”

Vasquez, however, said he considers the committee “well-balanced.”

“I think what we have seen is a clear diversity of perspective on the committee, but I think it does represent a cross-section,” he said.

On Tuesday, the five-member County Planning Commission will open hearings on five development proposals for the Foothill-Trabuco area. The county must adopt growth guidelines for the Foothill-Trabuco area before any of the five can win approval. But many believe the ultimate size and shape of these five projects will signal how willing the county is to open rural lands to new development.

2 Commercial Developments

Among the five projects are two commercial developments proposed for Cook’s Corner at El Toro and Live Oak Canyon roads. A 55,000-square-foot retail center would be built where Cook’s Corner bar now sits, and the legendary beer-and hamburger joint, which is a converted World War II mess hall, would be preserved. A 52,000-square-foot complex with a major grocery store, a gas station and a mini-mart is proposed for across the street.

Two others are church complexes, which would be built on Santiago Canyon Road north of Cook’s Corner. The Saddleback Community Church wants to build the county’s biggest sanctuary, with 2,000 seats more than the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. It also would have a 2,900-seat fellowship hall and multilevel parking structures for more than 2,000 cars.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church also has plans for a new church and a private school for 750 students on 67 acres.

The fifth project calls for 68 single-family homes on 69 acres next to the Seventh-day Adventist Church property.

Trabuco residents believe the five projects will mean a dramatic increase in area traffic and ultimately will result in more roads, which in turn will trigger more development.

One of the overriding long-range concerns of residents is construction of Rose Canyon Road, a proposed three-mile-long thoroughfare that would link Live Oak and Trabuco Canyon roads. The road would be necessary for anything but the most minimal development in the area, Dosherry said. It would begin at Live Oak just south of Hunky Dory Lane and arc eastward before turning south and intersecting Antonio Parkway at Trabuco Canyon Road in Rancho Santa Margarita. Rose Canyon Road would be two or four lanes, depending on how much development is approved for the area.

Impact on Environment

Residents say construction of Rose Canyon Road would destroy prime habitat and migration corridors for bobcats, deer and birds. Moreover, ridgelines would be altered and tons of earth moved to carve out the roadbed. Dosherry agrees that construction would have an impact on the environment, but how much is yet to be determined.

“Rose Canyon Road is the key,” said Glass, a former marketing executive with a Japanese automobile manufacturer who built a home with her husband in Trabuco Canyon four years ago. “If we can stop Rose Canyon, we can greatly limit the scope of development. But if that road goes in, we’ve lost a major part of our battle.”

However, even if Rose Canyon Road is never built, traffic engineers say, the area’s two major thoroughfares, Live Oak Canyon Road and Trabuco Canyon Road, will have to be widened to handle increasing traffic, much of it commuter traffic generated by growth in neighboring Rancho Santa Margarita and Portola Hills.

Live Oak, a narrow, winding two-lane road, can handle up to 4,500 cars a day. Currently, about 3,500 cars use the road daily, about double the number of three years ago. It is now classified as a “substandard roadway” by highway officials because of the volume of traffic. Even minimal widening and realigning of Live Oak would result in the loss of a number of oak trees, many of them several centuries old.

It is that link with the past, and a chance to live it on a daily basis, that drew Moreton, a housekeeper, and her family to Trabuco Canyon. Her 12-year-old son, Crosby, said he is worried that building hundreds of new homes will spoil what he has come to appreciate.

“There’s not that much wildlife left in Orange County,” said Crosby, whose family moved from rural Butte County, north of Sacramento. “Destroy this canyon, and there will be even less for everybody in the future.”

IF IT QUACKS ...

County officials can’t decide what rural means, but Trabuco Canyon residents have their own definitions. Page 22.

DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS FOR THE FOOTHILL/TRABUCO AREA:

Orange County officials are considering four alternatives for residential development in the Foothill/Trabuco Canyon area, 6,300 acres of mostly undeveloped land. Planning Commission hearings begin Tuesday on a portion of the Foothill/Trabuco Specific Plan. The Board of Supervisors may make a final decision in September.

Option 1:

536 units on lots averaging three to four acres.

No new road construction required, but widening and realignment along parts of Live Oak Canyon Road.

Open space: 3,660 acres.

Option 2:

1,186 units on one to three-acre lots, but some higher densities possible.

Major improvements on Live Oak Canyon and Trabuco Canyon roads, or a new two-lane Rose Canyon Road would begin at Live Oak Canyon Road and end at Rancho Santa Margarita Parkway.

Open space: 2,800 acres.

Option 3:

2,336 units on lots averaging one acre. But higher densities probable in some areas.

Construction of Rose Canyon Road, but wider than proposed in Option 2. Major improvements to Live Oak and Trabuco Canyon roads would not accommodate traffic generated by this level of development.

Open space: 2,540 acres. The county’s current General Plan calls for this level of development in the Foothill/Trabuco area.

Option 4:

4,833 units on lots averaging about half an acre. But high density, cluster development would occur in some areas.

Build Rose Canyon Road for four lanes, and widen Live Oak Canyon from El Toro Road to Rose Canyon Road to four or six lanes.

Open space: 2,110 acres.

Source: The Planning Division of the county Environmental Management Agency.

Staff writer Dave Lesher contributed to this report.