Cities Try to Keep the Orange in Orange County

ORANGE —  When Bob Hoyt was mayor, he spent a lot of time explaining to schoolchildren why their city got its name. Not a single orange grove was still growing within its borders.

“That got me to thinking,” said Hoyt, a councilman from 1966 to 1980. “So I went to the parks department and said I want an orange grove. They laughed, but I said, no, I’m serious.”

To satisfy the mayor, the city searched for a spot, and in 1975 planted about an acre of Valencia orange trees in Hart Park. It is the only orange grove in the city, and one of only a few thousand acres of citrus left in Orange County.

The city of Orange was the county’s first municipal farmer. But now other cities are purchasing orange groves and farms to preserve their agricultural heritage.

San Juan Capistrano is in the process of buying the 56-acre Kinoshita farm, located in the heart of the city, for $9.5 million. And the city of Irvine has begun appraising a 16-acre orange grove owned by the Irvine Co. in an effort to save it from development.

Officials said they are going into the farming business to ensure that the fruit that gave Orange County its name is not relegated solely to grocery store shelves.

“This was an agrarian economy and I think it’s vitally important to remember the history here,” said San Juan Capistrano Mayor Gary Hausdorfer. “On the West Coast, and especially Southern California, we have lost some of the character and qualities that drew people here in the first place.”

Most of Orange County’s cropland disappeared in the 1960s, when the heart of the county was developed. In 1959, about 123,000 acres were harvested, including 37,000 acres of citrus groves. By 1969, more than half of those had been converted into housing tracts, highways and shopping centers. Now, only about 18,000 acres of crops remain, including about 4,200 acres of citrus.

The 67-year-old Hoyt, whose grandparents were orange growers, missed the sweet aroma of orange blossoms that filled his hometown before the groves were cut down to make room for subdivisions and shopping malls. All the groves disappeared by the 1960s.

“The whole city used to live off the crop,” Hoyt said. “It was a glorious place to live in those days. Now when I’m gone, it’s still going to be sitting there as a reminder of what we had here once.”

John Ellis, a deputy agricultural commissioner for Orange County, likes the idea of government buying groves and farms not only for its aesthetic and nostalgic appeal, but also for its educational value.

“I talk to my own kids about growing and farming, but they don’t relate a jar of pickles to a cucumber. To them, milk comes from a store,” Ellis said. “So if they can get a firsthand impression of an orange and how it is grown, they’ll have an appreciation of where their orange juice came from.”

San Juan Capistrano decided in October to buy the Kinoshita farm--which is surrounded by residential areas and schools--so that the Kinoshita family would not sell the area’s last farm field to developers. The deal is expected to close by the end of January with most of the money coming from a $21-million open-space bond approved by voters in April.

Preserving a vegetable field or orange grove isn’t just a matter of shelling out the money to plant it or buy it.

“Farming is hard work,” Ellis said. “It’s expensive to cultivate and irrigate orange groves. Some years you show profit, some you don’t.

“If you just want the aesthetic appeal of orange trees, that’s a different goal, and more easily obtainable. But if you want production, it takes a knowledgeable management program.”

San Juan Capistrano will not try to manage the Kinoshita farm crops--mostly corn, lettuce and strawberries. Instead, the city plans to lease the land back to the Kinoshita family.

As part of its new plan to preserve 140 acres of open space, the city also expects to buy and preserve some orange groves.