Yorba Linda Takes First Step Toward a Nixon Library

The Yorba Linda Planning Commission on Wednesday took the first step toward cementing a deal to bring the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library home by approving designation of the former President’s family homestead as a historic site.

City officials announced in December that the controversial library project would be built next to the small, wood-frame house where the 75-year-old Nixon was born.

The commission also voted to certify a draft environmental impact report on the library project. However, design plans for the 83,000-square-foot structure have yet to be submitted by architects and still must be approved by the city, Planning Director Phillip Paxton said.

A model of the $24-million library will not be available until late summer, Paxton added.

September Ground-Breaking

More than a dozen members of the Richard Nixon Presidential Archives Foundation, which will manage the library, met with Nixon three weeks ago in San Clemente and reportedly reviewed final details and a scale model of the library. The former President is expected to return to Yorba Linda in September for scheduled ground-breaking ceremonies at the 6-acre library site at the northwest corner of Yorba Linda Boulevard and Eureka Avenue.

The original homestead was a 9-acre parcel that included the Richard M. Nixon Elementary School, which has been closed. The city recently paid $1.3 million for the school, which now is being used as a day-care center. City officials are still negotiating with owners of two other parcels in an effort to restore the entire homestead property for the library.

Wednesday’s public hearing on the library project generated virtually no opposition and little debate. The draft EIR concluded that the project will have no significant adverse impact on the surrounding community, although it is expected to draw thousands of visitors.

According to the environmental review, the library will attract an estimated 350,000 visitors annually. That number compares to an estimated 750,000 people who annually visit the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and the 250,000 who visit the John F. Kennedy Library each year.

However, city officials say most visitors to the Nixon library will come from the surrounding region and that it is not likely to result in new business development.

The first phase of construction will include the museum and theater wing of the complex, according to preliminary plans included in the EIR. The second phase will complete the archival wing.

The library initially will include Nixon’s vice presidential papers, personal papers since he left office, book manuscripts and White House diaries.

The 44 million pages of documents and 4,000 hours of tape recordings accumulated during Nixon’s six-year presidential term are under government control while classified information is removed before public release.

In 1983, Nixon chose as his preferred site for the library a 16-acre bluff-top site in San Clemente overlooking Casa Pacifica, the home he used as his West Coast presidential headquarters. When that project bogged down in delays and controversy, Nixon decided instead on the Yorba Linda site.