Vast Subdivision Takes Bow in Orange County : Foothill Ranch: Several builders plan a total of 3,900 homes in wide price range at $3-billion Orange County development.

The Southland’s newest large-scale development, Foothill Ranch, opens today in Orange County’s Saddleback Valley with 23 model homes in seven of its 17 neighborhoods.

A total of 3,900 homes are planned eventually.

The single-family houses from Bramalea Homes, Lyon Communities Inc. and J.M. Peters Co. will sell for $210,000 to $390,000 in the first increment of the $3-billion development.

Bramalea opens for sale with Beverly Court, 120 single-family houses with three two-story plans ranging from 1,695 to 1,963 square feet, priced from $259,000 to $299,000.

Lyon will open with four of the nine neighborhoods it will build within Provence, its own Foothill Ranch “village.”

Two of the neighborhoods, Avignon and Trieste, are designed for young and growing families. Avignon will have 195 houses ranging from 1,444 to 1,951 square feet, priced from $210,000 to $240,000. Trieste will haves 140 single-family houses with three plans, 1,780 to 2,115 square feet, priced from $240,000-$260,000.

The neighborhoods of Brigata and Cordoba are planned for growing and established families. Brigata will have 172 single-family houses in three plans, with 2,050-2,322 square feet, priced from $273,000 to $293,000. Cordoba will have 141 single-family houses in three plans, with 2,313 to 2,833 square feet, priced from $299,000-$335,000.

Peters will open with two move-up neighborhoods, Palacio and Promenade. Palacio will have 126 three- and four-bedroom single-family houses in three plans, 2,231-2,691 square feet, priced from the low $315,000 to $390,000. Promenade will have 118 two- to three-bedroom plans, some with lofts, ranging in size from 1,465 to 2,078 in four plans, priced from about $220,000 to $295,000.

Upon completion, the 17 neighborhoods will have about 3,900 housing units, ranging in size from about 800 to 3,707 square feet.

Included in this number will be about 1,501 apartment units in two projects by the Lyon Co. and Foothill Ranch Co., according to Dougall Agan of Foothill Ranch Co., an affiliate of Laguna Hills-based Hon Development.

Agan said that of the 3,900 units in Foothill Ranch, about 35% will satisfy Orange County’s housing affordability requirements. There are three categories of “affordable” housing, based on county median income. Housing units must be affordable to people making 80%, 100% and 120% of median income.

“I consider this (35%) to be a high level of affordability, which, along with setting aside as much land for industrial/commercial uses as for housing, makes Foothill Ranch such a balanced community,” said Orange County Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez, whose district includes Foothill Ranch.

“Developer Barry Hon is to be congratulated for creating a community that will give many of its residents a chance to work where they live.”

Of the 2,743 acres in the project, 579 acres are zoned for commercial/industrial, 530 acres for the 3,900 housing units and 1,393 acres for open space, including the regional park and other open space, according to Chris Downey, vice president and project manager for Foothill Ranch Co.

The large amount of land given over to open space in Foothill Ranch is part of a trade-off that is becoming increasingly common, according to real estate consultant Marta Borsanyi of the Newport Beach office of Robert Charles Lesser & Co.

“How much land a developer gives over to parks and open space is a matter of negotiation, with more open space dedication required now than just a few years ago,” she said.

“Also, county planners require builders to do much less grading these days, so it makes sense for a developer to set aside for open space that part of the site that would require a lot of grading to produce housing sites.”

Tom Fillmore of the Costa Mesa-based Market Profiles consulting firm said that the three builders represented in the first phase of Foothill Ranch are known for their “higher-than-average quality” houses, a definite marketing advantage in what he calls a “soft move-up market” in the county.

“Along with Rancho Santa Margarita, Foothill Ranch Co. has set the standard for future developers of master-planned communities in the county,” said Mike Ruane, director of the Orange County Environmental Management Agency.

Both Foothill Ranch and Rancho Santa Margarita are part of a series of large-scale residential/commercial developments under construction or planned along the Foothill Transportation Corridor.

The corridor will consist of a toll road connecting San Onofre at the extreme southern edge of Orange County to Jamboree Road at the north end of Tustin, roughly paralleling and relieving some of the congestion of the San Diego Freeway, Ruane added.

Construction is scheduled to begin early next year on the first increment of the toll road, about a nine-mile-long stretch from Plano Trabuco on the south to Irvine on the north, according to Downey of Foothill Ranch Co.

Downey said that under a 1988 agreement, landowners in the corridor will dedicate land for the toll road and pay most of the construction costs.

To fill the expected demand for industrial space in the first phase of the development, Foothill Ranch Co. has formed partnerships with Davis Developments of Newport Beach and two Irvine-based firms--Burke Commercial Development and Watt Business Properties, formerly W&S; Commercial, an affilliate of Santa Monica-based Watt Enterprises.

The three firms will start construction in September on 350,000 square feet of industrial and office space, Agan said.

Davis Developments will construct six buildings totaling 120,000 square feet, Burke will build about 25 small buildings totaling 135,000 square feet and Watt Business Properties will build about 95,000 square feet of small-user industrial and office space.

“When Foothill Ranch is built out near the end of the decade, it will have more than 8.5 million square feet of commercial/industrial space and 12,000 to 15,000 jobs,” Agan said.

Known locally as the Whiting Ranch, the site of Foothill Ranch was owned in rapid succession by numerous developers in the 1970s and 1980s, before it ended up in the real estate-owned portfolio of the Bank of Montreal. In 1986, Hon paid the bank just under $35 million for the property north of Mission Viejo and east of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Hon spent the next two years negotiating a development agreement with county officials, receiving approval last October, after agreeing to a trade-off that included contributing $40 million to a $240-million fund for the Foothill Circulation Phasing Plan, a traffic alleviation plan.

Joining Foothill Ranch in the plan was the neighboring Rancho Santa Margarita, which contributed $80 million. The two communities have contributed half of the $240 million that will be paid by 11 major landowners to mitigate traffic generated by their developments.