County Hopes to Shape New Cities Policy

Orange County planning commissioners urged Monday that proposed cities continue to follow the county’s lead on building new roads and providing open space and parks for their residents.

Commissioner Thomas Moody said he wants to be sure that the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFC) is aware of the Planning Commission’s concerns, a sentiment shared by county staff members.

The LAFC processes applications from communities that hope to incorporate as cities and sets dates for their residents to vote on the question.

A status report presented to the Planning Commission on Monday by Bryan Speegle, manager of advance planning in the county Environmental Management Agency, warned that new city councils may draft plans that “reflect a change in policy direction” from that followed by the county Board of Supervisors, which governs communities in unincorporated territory.

Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel and Dana Point have filed applications to become cities, and their incorporations may be on the ballot in November. Capistrano Beach and North Tustin have filed partial applications, according to Speegle’s report.

The county now participates with several cities in joint powers agencies that are planning three new freeways for the county and will help pay for them. If newly incorporated cities object to the freeways, it could upset plans for the traffic arteries.

Planning commissioners did not receive immediate answers to their questions about the LAFC’s power to deny incorporation to cities refusing to take part in the joint powers agencies or to continue other programs for road building, park construction and the like. The commissioners filed Speegle’s report and ordered an update in September.

The report stressed the need for the county to cooperate with newly formed cities to maintain county plans for open space, conservation areas and scenic corridors.

The report said the incorporations would result in “fragmentation of South County” and warned that “as the county becomes more fragmented, the scope of planning issues a single jurisdiction can effectively deal with narrows.”

“Consequently, the regional context from which issues have been addressed in the past by the county will no longer be feasible.”

Supervisors in recent months have complained that they are blamed for traffic snarls and out-of-control development even though housing density in unincorporated territory is less than in most of the county’s 26 cities. The supervisors have ordered studies of new and improved ways to communicate with the cities.

Speegle said that even if the incorporation of the five communities occurs, the remaining unincorporated area in the county will account for a fourth of the dwelling units in the county in the year 2010.

He predicted that more jobs will flow to unincorporated areas, with those areas providing 12% of the jobs in the county by 2010, contrasted with 5.8% now.

But transforming the five communities into cities will absorb a large chunk of county territory’s dwelling units and jobs, the report said. In 1985, the five communities accounted for 46% of the homes and apartments and 41% of the jobs.