Supervisors Vote to Increase House Density on Casa del Oso Site

Chapman College won a victory from the county Wednesday when supervisors voted 3 to 2 for a 50% increase in the number of houses that can be built on college property in southern Orange County that will be sold to a developer.

Although the county Environmental Management Agency planners had recommended denial, the supervisors went along with the county Planning Commission and approved a zone change allowing the building of 625 units rather than the previously approved 425 on what is known as the Casa del Oso planned community.

The 239-acre property, which county officials said now will be worth approximately $16 million, is just west of Cabot Road, which parallels Interstate 5, and south of Oso Parkway in the Laguna Hills area.

Concerned About Traffic

Robert G. Fisher, the county’s planning director, told college officials last month that Environmental Management Agency planners were urging denial because traffic on Interstate 5 next to Casa del Oso was already at the “upper limit” of acceptable volume.

Although the number of additional cars heading onto the freeway from the property may be small, Fisher said, it “will surely be viewed as significant by other drivers at those on-ramps” to the freeway.

Chapman’s campus is in the city of Orange, where the city Planning Commission on Oct. 6 reversed itself and rejected the college’s environmental impact report on a proposed 63-foot-tall building. The structure drew opposition from nearby residents because of its height and the traffic problems it might cause.

The college argued to supervisors that it needed the increase in the number of houses allowed on its property in county territory to be able to sell the property to a developer and use the funds “to continue to provide and enhance private education and public facilities to the Orange County community.”

The 2,100-student institution, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), also said it is a cultural asset, a resource to county health and social services, and an “important economic resource” with programs serving 236 businesses and related organizations in the county.

But Supervisors Ralph B. Clark, head of the Orange County Transit District, and Harriett Wieder, head of the Orange County Transportation Commission, voted against the college on the grounds the increase in homes would bring too much traffic to the area.

Clark said that, much as he respected the college, it is a private institution, not “a museum or a hospital or another public facility” where granting a zone change might be appropriate.

“The promise of the profits from a substandard project going for a good cause falls very short of passing the necessary test of overriding public benefit,” he said. The project “should stand or fall on its own merit and not because of the type of institution” that owns the property.

He said it was a “policy precedent” that could lead to other institutions “getting in the land speculation business as a way to raise needed funds.”

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose district includes the property that Nellie Gail Moulton gave to Chapman 12 years ago, noted that homeowners on the Nellie Gail Ranch, which borders the Chapman property, were not at the supervisors’ hearing to object to the rezoning, though they had earlier opposed it.

Riley said the zoning change was granted not “for some good of the school” but because the college agreed that improvements would be made on Cabot Road in exchange for the approval. But a compromise worked out by Riley reduced the improvements that the Planning Commission had recommended.

Supervisor Bruce Nestande, whose district, like Riley’s, contains large chunks of unincorporated territory in southern Orange County, said he would have voted for the increase no matter who was backing the project.

Nestande said the higher number of homes would put 2.6 dwelling units on each acre, which is lower than in many areas of northern Orange County.

“I just get a little bit incensed by slamming that kind of density in the south county when you have communities, cities, that have densities far exceeding that,” Nestande said.

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton also voted for the higher density.