Corona Tentatively OKs Compromise on Development

The City Council tentatively approved a compromise plan Wednesday night to guide development of the fields, groves and orchards of southern Corona, ignoring the Planning Commission’s recommendation to stick with an earlier proposal.

By a 5-0 vote, council members approved compromise language in a master plan that would allow up to 12,500 residences in the 4,900-acre greenbelt. But they asked staff members to review their changes and bring the measure back for a final vote on July 16, City Clerk Dee Lingenfelter said.

The greenbelt represents a quarter of Corona’s area, and is expected to nearly double the city’s population when it is fully developed.

The compromise was expected to end an often bitter dispute between agricultural landowners and homeowners that culminated in the circulation of competing ballot initiatives to control greenbelt growth.

Leaders on both sides of the issue agreed, as part of the compromise worked out in a City Council hearing two weeks ago, to drop their petition campaigns once the council approved the compromise.

Last week, the Planning Commission voted 6 to 0, with one member abstaining, to oppose the compromise reached between the landowners’ and residents’ groups.

Undesirable Mixture

That plan, commissioners said, will create an undesirable mixture of housing densities in the eastern half of the 4,900-acre greenbelt, where low-density “estate” housing would replace some of the denser residential development originally proposed.

The addition of estate homes, with a minimum lot size of three-fourths of an acre, is compatible with the planners’ vision of creating four distinct “villages” in south Corona, argued Tariq M. Shamma, president of the greenbelt residents’ group, Citizens for Quality Growth.

Each of those oblong villages is to be centered around a core of social, recreational and educational facilities. The village cores will be ringed first by medium-density housing--such as apartments and condominiums--and then by single-family homes.

Compared to the plan recommended by the Planning Commission, the compromise will move the northeasternmost village core about one-fourth of a mile north, realign some major streets in the greenbelt, and thin the housing density between some villages.

Those thinned areas will be less desirable than the foothill areas south of the four villages, planning commissioners warned. And those areas--around existing homes along Chase Drive, Main Street and Sonrisa Drive--could remain undeveloped for a long time.

By including lower-density housing in those areas, the compromise plan does not create a spotty zoning pattern, as critics charged, Shamma said. Instead, it leaves the plan for those areas consistent with the current residents’ lots, which range in size from three-fourths of an acre to five acres, thus protecting their homes and life styles.

Reducing Number of Homes

Planning commissioners also were concerned that reducing the maximum number of homes in the greenbelt by 9% from their recommendations will increase the share of infrastructure costs applied to each new residence, making development less economical and increasing the price of each home.