Services District Board Votes to Ask Formation of City of Mission Viejo

In a historic decision for the planned community, the Mission Viejo Services District board voted unanimously Monday night to pursue the formation of a city within its boundaries.

“The future of Mission Viejo is at stake, and it’s a difficult decision for me to make,” said district board member Robert Breton. “This will not bind the community, but it will simply preserve an option. . . . I think that the facts of (incorporation) feasibility are sufficiently clear to be placed on the ballot.”

November Vote Possible

The services district, which was formed just 15 months ago in a communitywide vote, will submit incorporation papers to the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission this week.

The commission probably will consider the application this spring, and if it is approved Mission Viejo residents could vote on the issue in the November election.

Since the first homes were sold in Mission Viejo 20 years ago, the community has grown to more than 65,000 residents. Another 30,000 are expected to move there over the next decade. If the community incorporates next year, it will be the county’s 11th or 12th most populous city, roughly equal to Buena Park (65,699) and well ahead of Fountain Valley (55,141).

A financial feasibility study submitted last week by an outside consultant showed that the community would have a considerable surplus in tax revenue as a city: In 1985-86, revenue that would have accrued to the city totaled nearly $12.7 million, outpacing expenditures for the area by $5.6 million.

By filing for incorporation before March 1, Mission Viejo stands to save up to $2 million in locally generated property taxes. A new state law allows the county to seek reimbursement from new cities that applied after that date for services provided in their start-up year. Under the old law, the county had to provide those services at no cost to fledgling cities.

The law, which was sponsored by Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-San Diego), has led to a spate of incorporation efforts in south Orange County. So far this year, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point and Capistrano Beach have filed petitions with the Local Agency Formation Commission to become cities. A group in North Tustin also is considering incorporation.

The last of Orange County’s 26 cities to incorporate was Irvine, in 1971.

In voting to include only the original Mission Viejo planned community in the proposed city, the directors rejected an outside group’s pleas to include the surrounding Saddleback Valley communities of Laguna Hills, El Toro, Lake Forest and Aegean Hills.

The group, made of residents from those four communities, tried to convince the directors that a valleywide city would be both financially and politically more powerful than several small cities.

“It is difficult to consider a relationship in which two cities would not deteriorate into a state of confusion, inefficiency and antagonism,” said Herbert Heyes, a spokesman for the Citizens Cityhood Committee for the Greater Saddleback Valley. “There is a better way . . . to join ranks with us in a united effort . . . so appealing that its success will be assured from the start.”

But the board was reluctant to include any new territory in the proposed city.

“I was elected by the voters of Mission Viejo to preserve and protect their interests and I will vote accordingly,” said board member Victoria Jaffe.

Richard Anderson, chairman of the Saddleback Valley group, said the group would launch a petition drive in an attempt to persuade the Local Agency Formation Commission--which must approve the proposed boundaries--to include their communities in the new city.