Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : No Roads, No Development : CITIES

No roads? No buildings!

That was the surprise message to developers from the Orange County Board of Supervisors, which voted to prohibit new development in a large unincorporated area in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains until roads are added or improved.

“This is a major historical action as far as planning is concerned here in Orange County,” Supervisor Bruce Nestande said. It is a step past “political rhetoric,” he said.

The action means that proposed housing tracts in an area stretching from Mission Viejo north to the outskirts of Irvine and from the Santa Ana Freeway east to the Cleveland National Forest would be allowed only after the impact on traffic is studied, Nestande said.

The vote was good news to many South County residents, who fear that increased development will destroy their rural life styles and clog existing roads with urban-like traffic.

Nestande also made a strong plea for cooperation from cities in efforts to limit growth in a reasonable fashion, saying the county has far stricter limits on how many homes can be built on an acre of land than they do.

Cities must join with the county to consider “the entire regional impact” of new developments, he said. “The county in and by itself is not going to be able to solve this problem. . . . We have reached a (traffic) crisis without question, but we have not, in my estimation, reached doomsday,” he said.