Chino Hills: Pace of Growth Speeds Despite Obstacles

In the low, rolling Chino Hills, where four counties meet--Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino--a community that may someday contain 30,000 or more housing units and a population of 100,000 is slowly taking shape.

Although the Chino Hills are remarkably close to metropolitan bustle, they retain much of their rural charm. Sheep and cattle graze on slopes that are bright green from the recent rains. A few windmills still dot the landscape. But not for long.

In 1982 the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved a “specific plan” for slightly more than 18,000 of the 40,000 acres in the Chino Hills. The plan calls for residential development in eight “villages,” each with its own core of shops and services, and for a large regional shopping center.

Look Into the Future

By the end of this century there could be as many as 39,000 houses, apartments and condominiums, with a population of well over 100,000, according to the plan.

Critics say such large-scale development will destroy the beauty of one of the last large undeveloped areas close to Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“The densities are much too high,” said Allen P. McCombs, publisher of the weekly Chino Champion. “It happened because the Board of Supervisors is very much under the control of the developers, there’s no doubt about that.”

But defenders of the plan say it seeks to preserve the attractiveness of the hills by requiring that 5,000 of the 18,000 acres be open space, by insisting that ridge lines with good views be preserved and by providing for hiking trails, bike paths and other amenities

A companion document to the specific plan seeks to identify sources for almost $600 million worth of schools, roads, sewers, flood control facilities and other infrastructure that will be needed if the hills are to be habitable. About $225 million of this amount is to come from local sources--assessment districts and user taxes, while the rest of the money, mostly for roads and schools, is supposed to come from the state.

Doubts on Financing

Development has been slower than expected--so slow, in fact, that some think the financing plan may collapse. Since the specific plan was approved by the supervisors three and one-half years ago, only 268 building permits have been issued for the entire plan area.

But lately the pace has quickened. Earth movers, road graders and house builders are hard at work. The first bond issue, for $41.5 million, was approved by the Board of Supervisors in May and $26.5 million worth of roads, sewers and flood control facilities now are under construction.

“We’re right on the threshold of major development,” said Dick Rieker, Chino Hills regional manager, who predicted that 1,000 new housing units would be built in the specific plan area in 1986.

Rieker said the project is behind schedule because the housing market was “flat” until about a year ago and because “there was just so much involved in getting things started--now you’re going to see things really moving.”

Former county Supervisor Robert O. Townsend said the Chino Hills plan came about to prevent “piecemeal development of the hills, without proper infrastructure.”

Assessment Income

Planning took more than three years and was financed by a one-time assessment of $46 per acre, which yielded more than $800,000

The process was greatly aided, Townsend said, by a state law passed in 1978 that said a single environmental review would be sufficient for an entire specific plan area and that individual reports would not be needed for each development.

There were “spirited arguments” within the group of county planners and local citizens charged with producing a blueprint for the hills, Townsend said, “but eventually we reached a consensus.”

Now the question is whether the plan that emerged from this consensus, and the accompanying financial scheme, will work. Several serious problems are evident:

MONEY: The financial plan assumes that income from developer fees (now slightly more than $8,000 per housing unit) will be used to pay off bonds to build roads, schools and other facilities. So far, however, the revenue from developer fees is not sufficient to pay the interest on the bonds.

This is a “catch 22” situation. Without the new public facilities, the area cannot be developed, but without development there can be no fees to finance the bonds to pay for the facilities.

“We can meet all our commitments to the (financing) plan if we get about 700 new units a year,” said Rieker, the regional manager. “I’m confident we’ll reach that level this year--the units are coming on line.”

Looking for Tax Money

If there is not enough development to support the bonds, he added, “we may have to go to the tax rolls”--that is, levy assessments against property owners who are benefitting from what is built with the bond money.

This will come as a shock to many Chino Hills property owners, although Rieker insisted, “we’ve always preached that was a possibility, it was always in the plan.”

Albert R. Reid, administrator of the San Bernardino County General Services Administration and Rieker’s boss, said property assessments are almost certain.

“We are now showing a lower revenue flow from fees than we anticipated,” Reid said, “which means that for two or three years we will probably have to collect some part of the assessment.”

In Townsend’s view, “most developers are reducing their base densities, some up to 30%. This sort of disrupts the tuning, as far as the finance plan is concerned.”

Setting Lower Sights

The former supervisor, who is now a “development adviser,” said he expects 20,000 housing units, and 60,000 people, in the Chino Hills in the next 20 years, instead of the minimum 30,000 units and 100,000 people by the year 2000 envisioned in the specific plan.

Reid said the “most probable scenario” calls for 474 new housing units this year, not the 900 envisioned in the original plan nor the 700 Rieker said were needed to finance the first bonds.

Down scaling the plan also requires important changes in the financial arrangements, a process that Reid said is well under way.

“We are restructuring the financial plan to reflect the actual market as it’s evolving,” he said.

The financial problems being experienced by Chino Hills come as no surprise to some officials of nearby cities.

‘Looked Kind of Scary’

Loren Wasserman, city manager of Rancho Cucamonga, said he studied the financial plan two or three years ago and “it looked kind of scary to me--it looked like somebody said, ‘find a way to do it’ and they did it, but if I was the county, I’d be worried. There’s too much bonded debt on too uncertain a base.”

Ora E. Lampman, city administrator of Pomona, said, “the way they’re approaching this, I have to wonder about the integrity of the financial structure of it.”

SCHOOLS: One aspect of the Chino Hills plan that has already gone sour is the assumption that the state would pay for permanent schools for the thousands of children who are expected to live in the hills one day. An agreement reached with the Chino Unified School District several years ago required Chino Hills developers to provide only portable classrooms on existing school sites, waiting for the state to build permanent schools.

But the Chino schools, pressed by new residential development on the north, south and west, are already overcrowded. One hundred thirty-three portable classrooms are in use this year, in a district that has only about 17,000 students. There is no more room for additional portables for Chino Hills youngsters.

After a year or so of yelling at each other, Chino school officials, San Bernardino County planners and Chino Hills developers sat down to negotiate a new agreement.

This one commits the county, using fees from builders and developers, to provide elementary schools as they are needed, up to a maximum total expenditure of $59 million. (It is still hoped that the state will pay for most of the cost of junior and senior high schools.)

The agreement was approved by the Chino school board Thursday night and is to be voted on by the Board of Supervisors Feb. 24.

“We think this solves the problem,” said school planner Nancy Webster, “but we all realize there could be a situation where we’d have to go back to the drawing board.”

Townsend, whose name is attached to a new junior high school that will open in the Chino Hills next fall, said he was puzzled by the continuing dispute.

“I don’t know why we keep arguing about providing schools,” he said. “If the area is to be developed, they have to be provided, it has to be done.”

ROADS: Builders and planners agree that the inadequate Chino Hills road system presents a major obstacle to development.

“This is the single biggest issue that’s going to determine whether the Chino Hills, and the entire west end of the (San Bernardino) Valley, develop,” said Ray Becker, vice president of Lusk Homes, which has two projects within the specific plan area.

The biggest problem is caused by California 71, which will carry most of the traffic into, and out of, the hills for many years. This 15-mile-long artery, running from Interstate 10 on the north to California 91 (Riverside Freeway) on the south, is congested and has an above-average accident rate, according to Caltrans.

Funds Not Available

County and state transportation officials agree that California 71 should become either an expressway or a freeway, probably a freeway, but they also agree the money is not available to construct such a road. Only minor improvements can be made in the near future.

Meanwhile, “we’ll concentrate on our internal circulation,” said Rieker, the Chino Hills regional manager. Carbon Canyon Road, near the southern boundary of the specific plan area, will be widened where it intersects with 71. Two additional east-west roads are planned, connecting the hills with Los Angeles and Orange counties.

But, for the next few years at least, those who move to the Chino Hills seeking to escape metropolitan-area traffic congestion will be disappointed.

There are other problems.

If the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors decides to open up all or part of the “dairylands” preserve for housing, these new developments are likely to compete with those in the Chino Hills, making the financing of public facilities in the hills an even shakier proposition.

Plans for the regional shopping center, badly needed as a tax revenue source, seem to be receding into the distance as other communities in the area--Pomona, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga-- proceed with plans for their own regional centers. All of these plans were delayed when Montclair Plaza, in the city of Montclair, just east of the Los Angeles County line, recently doubled its size.

An Eye on Parks

Although the Chino Hills specific plan provides for a large amount of park space, “not many of the parks are there yet,” said Larry Gillespie, an elementary school teacher who is chairman of the Chino Hills Municipal Advisory Council.

Sherman W. Griselle, professor of urban and regional planning at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, wondered if “the promises in the plan will hold up . . . or will there be fewer parks and hiking trails, harsher grading, the elimination of ridge lines? That’s what usually happens.”

So there are questions and there are problems, but there is also much optimism that the Chino Hills plan will lead to the orderly development of this prized location.

“We think the plan is going to work,” said Doug Ford, vice president of land development for Brammalea California, which plans to build about 3,400 housing units within the specific plan area. “Time will tell, but we’re optimistic.”

Said Ray Becker of Lusk Homes: “The financing plan is very complex but I think it’s going to work and I think you’ll see more things like it in the future, as the traditional sources of infrastructure funding dry up.”