‘Bunch of Little Developments . . . Difficult to Meld Together’ : Saddleback Valley ‘War’ Looms

Today could mark the beginning of another torrid turf war in the south county.

The county agency that reviews incorporations--which in the last year has witnessed simple cityhood applications turn into battles for historic land claims--will be presented today with a proposal that calls for binding five south county communities into one Saddleback Valley City, with a population of 77,000.

Area residents already have taken sides, and the issue stands to be long and divisive. Residents from two of the communities have organized in an attempt to exclude their neighborhoods from what they consider to be a huge, sprawling city of Saddleback Valley.

“We’re not a planned community. We’re a bunch of little developments, and it’s difficult to meld them together,” said Thomas M. Whaling, the attorney for the Citizens Cityhood Group for the Greater Saddleback Valley.

Tax Revenues Eyed

But the large-city advocates will try to convince the Local Agency Formation Commission--which recommends incorporation proposals to the Board of Supervisors--that consolidating these areas would bring greater political clout, as well as the opportunity to recapture the tax revenues currently going to the county.

The proposed valleywide city sits with Irvine, Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel at its boundaries and would include the communities of El Toro, Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, Laguna Terrace and Aegean Hills.

Some residents within Laguna Hills and Aegean Hills are in favor of incorporation, but not with Saddleback Valley.

And some Aegean Hills residents have been gathering signatures in their community for a petition to annex to Mission Viejo when it becomes a city on March 31.

In addition, a group in Laguna Hills would prefer its community to incorporate into its own smaller city, remaining on the west side of Interstate 5.

“I’m not struck with the concept that bigger is better,” said R. Craig Scott, chairman of Citizens to Save Laguna Hills. “We want our area preserved. Not just the name. They have offered to call the valleywide city Laguna Hills, but we’re talking about a sense of community that we wish to preserve.”

Familiar Chord

Scott’s remarks strike a familiar chord that has been ringing throughout the south county in the last two years, as several communities have sought incorporation to gain local control.

For example, Mission Viejo wanted to incorporate within its own planned community and Laguna Niguel wanted to stay within its historical boundaries. Saddleback Valley cityhood backers--who have been discussing incorporating for six years--originally tried to include both Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel in their proposal, but the two communities broke off and sought their own incorporations.

This won’t be the first time the Saddleback Valley proponents have been before LAFCO.

Last year, they tried to persuade LAFCO to include the valleywide city with Mission Viejo, which was conducting its own cityhood drive at the time. That idea was rejected both by Mission Viejo and LAFCO.

Now the Laguna Hills and Aegean Hills groups also have formed to prevent their inclusion in the large city. Their efforts really began to roll after the Saddleback group dropped its petition effort and chose to ask a local water district to apply for incorporation on the group’s behalf.

The Santa Ana Mountains County Water District--which serves about 10% of the residents within the proposed city--voted in December to back Saddleback’s effort and file an incorporation application with LAFCO. According to the state law that governs incorporations, any government agency that would be affected by incorporation, such as a sewer or water district, may sponsor the cityhood application.

“I think they artificially accelerated (incorporation) when they went to the water board,” Scott said, noting that another way cityhood applications can be filed is by a petition of 25% of the registered voters within the area.

Petition Falls Short

The Saddleback group did undertake a petition drive in August and by December had only gathered about 3,000 of the 9,400 signatures necessary. The petition deadline was Jan. 28.

Clyde Childress, chairman of the Saddleback group, said the group could not afford to pay the fees to verify the signatures and went to the water district board instead.

“I must admit we were not as organized as we should have been at the beginning of the petition drive,” Childress said. “We naively thought it would be easy to get the signatures. (The water board) accommodated us with no promise from us. There were no strings attached; they simply did us a favor.

“Immediately the Laguna Hills group and Aegean Hills cried foul, that we were circumventing the rule of the people. But they will ultimately decide at the ballot box--that’s the will of the people.”

But Scott said he and his group hope to remove Laguna Hills from the Saddleback proposal before they get a chance to vote on it.

Laguna Hills proponents sent LAFCO a letter with their intention to file a cityhood petition. In eight days, they gathered signatures from 31% of the registered voters in Laguna Hills.

The signatures still have to be verified, but Scott said the group hopes to file a complete incorporation application with LAFCO by Feb. 15, when a financial feasibility study should be completed.

“We don’t want (LAFCO) to think of us just as spoilers. We intend to file our own application,” Scott said.

Meanwhile, LAFCO officials have been presented with Saddleback Valley’s financial feasibility study, which concludes that it could become a city with a comfortable first year (1989-90) revenue surplus of $9.3 million.

A big chunk of those revenues would come from the Laguna Hills Mall, which could represent more than $1 million in sales tax revenues annually.

In 1986, the mall tallied $130 million in sales, according to Saddleback’s financial study conducted by consultant Joe Convery of Christensen & Wallace Inc. in Oceanside. If all sales were taxable, 1% of sales, or $1.3 million in 1986, would go toward the proposed city.

The Laguna Hills group would like to see the mall remain in its proposed city.

Saddlback’s Childress, who lives in Laguna Hills, said the mall should be a part of a large city because it serves the residents of the whole area, not just Laguna Hills. About 40% of the people who shop at the mall live in Laguna Hills, the other 60% are from surrounding areas, he said.

“It’s a regional mall,” Childress added.

“I don’t know of any malls that aren’t regional,” Scott said.

Childress said a Saddleback Valley city could still be financially viable, even without Laguna Hills, Aegean Hills and the Laguna Hills Mall.

“It would be the richest of the three cities (Saddleback, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo) and the most economically viable in the long run,” said Childress, noting that there is still plenty of undeveloped land in El Toro available for light industrial and commercial use, while Laguna Hills is nearly built out.

However, Childress still prefers the large city, which would be able to handle regional problems better and would have more clout with the county, state and other local governments.

But Scott doesn’t agree. He and his group believe that a City of Laguna Hills, with a population of 20,000, would better suit the community.

“We see our interests in Laguna Hills different because of the growth issue,” Scott said. “These are two different communities with the freeway being the logical boundary.”

Childress anticipates that his group will have to make several appearances before LAFCO.

“To go in there (LAFCO meeting) and think we’re going to slam dunk this is to be as pie-in-the-sky as the Laguna hills people,” Childress said.