Building Out the Future

Bulldozers in South County scrape the rolling hills of former ranchlands into the neighborhoods of tomorrow. The well-worn streets of Anaheim are chopped apart and paved anew.

Orange County enters this century much as it did the last: as a work in progress.

Some 100,000 acres of undeveloped land remain in the county. Precisely how much of it will eventually be used--or preserved--has not been determined. Environmental battles and the undecided fate of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station will have a significant impact on what the county will look like in the decades to come. Meanwhile, transportation officials continue the contentious process of finding a home for the proposed final stretch of the Foothill Transportation Corridor, yet another missing piece in the puzzle.

But perhaps for the first time, the future is not a total mystery.

“There is basically a planning horizon that we can see,” says county planning and development director Thomas Matthews. “The daunting goal is to balance the development opportunities with preservation” plans.

The timeline for the county’s eventual buildout is unclear. It will depend on market forces, conservation concerns, local city and county approval, and the whim of the landowners.

More than 25,000 acres of Orange County open space were converted to urban uses between 1984 and 1998, according to the state Department of Conservation’s farmland mapping and monitoring program. Between 1996 and 1998, the most recent figures available, development claimed 7,803 acres of open land.

Yet there is still room to grow, and a roaring demand for housing in the region. By 2020 the county’s population is expected to grow from the present level of more than 2.8 million people to approximately 3.28 million, according to the Center for Demographic Research at Cal State Fullerton, which provides population information to the county.

“We have been adding approximately 40,000 jobs a year in Orange County, and that’s forecast to continue over the next several years. But we’re delivering only about 10,000 housing units a year,” said Richard Gollis of the Concord Group, a real estate advisory firm based in Newport Beach.

That imbalance is “probably the biggest threat we have to the overall quality of life in the years to come,” Gollis said.

The largest portion of undeveloped land left in the county is in the south, approximately 30,000 acres that belong to the Rancho Mission Viejo Co. east of Antonio Parkway. Another big swath belongs in most part to the Irvine Co., lands at the far north of the Irvine Ranch that fall within Anaheim and in the city of Orange’s sphere of influence.

There are about 50,000 undeveloped acres left on the Irvine Ranch, according to Irvine Co. spokesman Larry Thomas.

“We generally believe that less than half of that will be developed,” Thomas said.

The rest will become designated open spaces, required by the county and local cities in return for the authorization to build.

The Irvine Ranch originally included about 125,000 acres. Its actual buildout will take about 20 to 25 years, Thomas predicts.

“No one can tell you with precision what and when,” Thomas said. “It will be demand in the marketplace that will most significantly affect that schedule.”

Significant parts of both the Irvine Co. and Rancho Mission Viejo Co. properties will be maintained as open space, county planners say. But as the economy continues its unprecedented boom, and the demand for housing in the region remains high, the companies have expressed interest in developing blueprints for the future of their remaining land.

Even as the first families stream into the Rancho Mission Viejo Co.’s fledgling Ladera Ranch development, heirs of the family that has owned the land since 1882 are looking ahead. The company, headed by Richard O’Neill, his nephew Anthony Moiso and other relatives, owns the northern part of a vast ranch that once stretched from Oceanside to El Toro. About 30,000 of the ranch’s original 230,000 acres remain untouched.

While nothing is planned beyond the eventual 8,100 homes that will comprise Ladera Ranch, the next planned community will likely be proposed before Ladera’s expected completion over the next 10 to 15 years, Rancho Mission Viejo Co. spokeswoman Diane Gaynor said.

County planner Matthews said the company has been working with conservation agencies and the county itself to explore the possibilities for future development.

“We’ve had a few meetings with representatives of the ranch and they have let it be known that they are very interested in composing a land-use plan for the remainder,” Matthews said. “The success of Ladera has been very stimulating to them.”

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But the process will not be without challenges, Matthew predicts. “A lot of that land is really significant habitat resource,” he said.

Indeed, the land is part of a 131,000-acre region whose future may be decided in a massive give and take involving the developer, government regulators, scientists and environmentalists under what’s known as the Natural Community Conservation Planning program.

Under such plans, environmentally sensitive land is saved in blocs theoretically large enough to ensure survival of rare plants and animals. In return, federal and state regulators free the participating landowners from tough endangered species laws on the remaining lands within the planning region.

The only other such agreement in the county was reached with the Irvine Co. in 1996, creating a patchwork totaling 37,000 acres of preserve land in central and coastal Orange County.

Another large question mark in South County concerns the placement of the Foothill South toll road--the final segment in the planned 67-mile county tollway system that would connect Oso Parkway with Interstate 5.

Toll road officials prefer a route that would cut through the San Onofre State Beach’s inland section, land that is currently on lease from the federal government. But conservationists have vowed to fight the plan. A second option under consideration would send the road through San Clemente--a scenario the city has made clear it would oppose.

Plans for the road are on hold until a ruling comes from the Federal Highway Administration, which is expected in about 2003. An environmental impact study will be out for public review in late 2002 or early 2003, Transportation Corridor Agencies spokeswoman Lisa Telles said.

While future projects in South County are still very much in question, the 3,510-acre Talega development in the eastern reaches of the city of San Clemente is not. The community’s official grand opening is not until Feb. 26, but a few early-bird families will move in to Talega’s first phase as early as Feb. 5. The development--a partnership between Standard Pacific, Catellus Residential Group and Starwood Capital Group--will eventually include 4,500 homes, a golf course, a nature reserve, an office and business park and a school.

Although South County has in recent years been a hotbed of development activity, there is significant building potential in the northern parts of Orange County too.

On either side of the Eastern tollway, there is undeveloped land in Anaheim and in unincorporated parts of the county that fall within the city of Orange’s sphere of influence. Most of it belongs to what the Irvine Co. calls its northern ranch planning area.

The area “has really been kind of a back-burner issue for us,” said Paul Kranhold, Irvine Co. vice president for corporate communications.

But perhaps not for long.

In Anaheim, a 2,339-acre sweep of Irvine Co. land that stretches from the Eastern Toll Road to the city’s eastern limits was approved for development in 1991, but has yet to be built. Named Mountain Park, the community was planned to include 7,966 units of housing and an estimated population of 21,260.

A year later, a 663-acre, 1,550-unit development called Cypress Canyon was approved just to the north. That land, owned by the Sinclair Co., is cut off from the rest of Anaheim by Mountain Park. It has not been developed either, but Anaheim deputy planning director Mary McCloskey said the Sinclair Co. is now actively working with the city to find a way to link Cypress Canyon to the city through Mountain Park.

And after years of focusing on Irvine and its properties to the south, the Irvine Co. has begun to reexamine its plans in the north of the county as well.

The northern portion of the Irvine Ranch that doesn’t fall within Anaheim is county land in the city of Orange’s sphere of influence. The city’s 1989 General Plan includes a 7,000-acre community to be built on some of it, development director Jack McGee said.

The plans include 12,000 residential units, a golf course and a mix of business uses. McGee predicts the plans would likely face considerable revisions before development could proceed. “It will likely end up being a lot more open space,” he said.

“We expected they would start development some time ago, but the economy wouldn’t allow that to happen,” McGee said. “It’s a developing fringe of the community. It will happen some day.”

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McGee said the city would be eager to see those plans come to fruition. And he points out that unlike in South County, where the toll road is years, if not decades, from completion, the major roads in the northern parts of Orange County are already in place. “The basic infrastructure is there,” he said.

If job growth continues as predicted and other economic factors stay strong, Matthews said he expects the county’s northern area will be a major focus in the years to come.

“Just as in the South County, the resurgence in [the real estate market] has been very stimulating to these landowners. They’re very anxious about updating their plans and gaining entitlements for the unplanned lands,” Matthews said.

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Still Growing

a The Rancho Mission company owns the largest portion of undeveloped land remaining in Orange County. Another big stretch of land belongs to the Irvine Company. Both will likely see new planned communities developed in the years to come.

Sources: Center for Demographic Research, Irvine Co., Rancho Mission Viejo Co.