The Journey to Porter Lane Hits Dead End

The sometimes controversial Sam Porter won’t get to see his name on a south county street sign. At least not now.

A request by the William Lyon Co. to change the name of Shadow Rock Lane in the developer’s Trabuco Highlands housing development to Porter Lane was withdrawn Wednesday.

The reason? County officials belatedly learned what Michele Alloway already knew: that houses already have been built and sold on the street. Alloway, who is buying one of the houses, had opposed the name change because all of her legal documents would have to be corrected.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said Tuesday that the county Environmental Management Agency has been directed to write policy guidelines limiting name changes to streets without homes.

“There was a memorandum issued over a year ago for them to do that, but it was not carried out,” Vasquez said. “If it had been, we could have avoided this situation.” Vasquez said that the William Lyon Co. had indicated it would find a street to name after Porter that had not been developed.

Porter said last week that the William Lyon Co. promised him four years ago that it would name a street for him, because without his permission it used the name of his 280-acre Trabuco Highlands Ranch for its nearby housing development.

Porter is a longtime county resident and frequent critic of the Board of Supervisors. He ran against Vasquez in the June 7 primary election.