$3.18 Million Earmarked to Expand Rancho Santiago’s Orange Campus

Rancho Santiago College’s branch campus in Orange will almost double in size if Gov. George Deukmejian’s new budget is approved.

Unveiled Thursday, the budget calls for giving $3.18 million to the 30-acre campus so that 22 more acres can be purchased. The campus is located at Newport Boulevard and Chapman Avenue in the eastern part of the city of Orange.

The campus is an arm of Rancho Santiago, a community college that has been in Santa Ana for 72 years and formerly was called Santa Ana College. Rancho Santiago’s Santa Ana campus has an enrollment of about 18,600 college-credit students in addition to about 9,000 students who take non-credit courses.

College district officials said Friday that Deukmejian’s action means that enrollment at the Orange branch--now 1,600--will continue to grow.

Agreement on Taxes

City of Orange residents became a part of Rancho Santiago Community College District in 1971. At that time they agreed to a 10-year increase in property taxes in exchange for the district’s pledge to build a separate branch campus in Orange sometime in the future.

The pledge of a campus in Orange became a political and fiscal controversy. Some Santa Ana residents opposed the proposed expansion, saying it might hurt the mother campus. And in Sacramento, years of political battling occurred before educational officials approved the expansion and the Legislature appropriated initial funds.

The Orange branch campus came into life on Aug. 26, 1985, with one building on the embryonic 30-acre site. Rancho Santiago officials pledged to expand the campus into six or seven other major buildings and ultimately to have a 96-acre site.

“The governor’s budget will make it possible to buy the most important part of the land we need to expand,” said Rancho Santiago Chancellor Robert Jensen. “Most of the new buildings we’re planning will go on the 22 acres of additional land we’ll be buying. Being in the governor’s budget this year was very crucial.”

While the Legislature still must approve the governor’s proposed budget, and while the college still must negotiate a purchase price with the landowner, the Irvine Co., Rancho Santiago officials on Friday said they feel certain the 22 acres can and will be purchased within the next 18 months.

The additional land is immediately to the east of the 30 acres currently forming the Orange campus. College officials have already been negotiating with the Irvine Co., and purchase prospects look very favorable, said Rancho Santiago Vice Chancellor Robert Matthew.

6,000 Enrollment Envisioned

“The Irvine Co. is being very helpful,” said Matthew. “I think it’s fair to say they regard us as a good tenant for that land.”

The Orange campus, Matthew said, ultimately will be almost like a new and separate college in its own right. Rancho Santiago Community College District envisions a 6,000-student enrollment on the Orange campus in the next decade. As the Irvine Co. continues development of its large subdivisions in the eastern Orange area, the college district is predicting a population of 157,000 residents in the vicinity of the new campus by the year 2000.

Rancho Santiago College also has an older branch campus in Garden Grove, situated at Trask Avenue and Newhope Street. The Garden Grove branch has about 1,450 college-credit students this year.

The college district’s governing board has repeatedly emphasized that it intends to remain a one-college district. The branches will never become independent colleges, board members have said.

“But in all other aspects, the Orange campus is becoming very much like a separate college,” Matthew said. “The need for this campus is clearly there in the eastern corridor (of the Orange-Anaheim area). All the demographic projections show this area is a growth area.”