Environmentalists Claim Victory : Panel Puts Brakes on Trabuco Canyon Road

In a major victory for environmentalists, the Orange County Planning Commission on Tuesday recommended scuttling a proposed two-lane road that critics warned would have opened hundreds of acres of rugged backcountry in southern Orange County to intense development and traffic.

On a 2-1 vote, the commission recommended that Rose Canyon Road--a three-mile-long proposed road through Trabuco Canyon on the edge of the Cleveland National Forest--be eliminated from the county’s master plan of highways. The county Board of Supervisors will make a final decision later this year on the fate of the proposed road, as well as a sweeping plan to limit growth in the sparsely populated canyon and hill country northeast of Mission Viejo.

In recommending the demise of Rose Canyon Road, Planning Commissioner Stephen A. Nordeck said the road would be “one of the most catastrophic things to ever occur” in Trabuco Canyon.

“You don’t preserve the rural character by putting a major highway through ridges and canyons,” said Nordeck, who represents the Trabuco Canyon area on the commission. “Getting rid of this road will go a long way to ending some bad feelings it has created in this community.”

Construction of the controversial roadway was a key element in the county’s proposal to allow nearly 1,800 new homes to be built in a 6,500-acre swath known as the Foothill-Trabuco area. Debate over the plan has deeply divided Trabuco Canyon residents, environmentalists and property owners.

Many environmentalists and residents viewed the Rose Canyon Road, in particular, as the harbinger of what could be the end of the area’s rustic way of life, and they applauded the commission’s recommendation to kill it.

“What a great feeling,” exclaimed Bruce Conn, a Trabuco Canyon resident and leader of the Rural Canyons Conservation Fund. “This is the first time I can remember leaving this chamber with a smile.”

Momentum for eliminating the road had been building in recent weeks. Even property owners seeking to develop their land joined the outcry, saying they believed the roadway would destroy what makes the area so attractive: its rural charm.

“There is room for reasonable growth without that road,” said Jerry Trotter, whose 4 1/2-acre ridge-top parcel would have overlooked Rose Canyon Road. Like other property owners, Trotter has criticized the county growth plan as too restrictive, and favors building a network of local roads other than Rose Canyon to service new development.

Phil Anthony, a former county supervisor who represents the Foothill-Trabuco Property Owners Assn., agreed: “We can live without Rose Canyon Road as long as we get some sort of local collector system.”

The commission recommended Tuesday that the half-moon-shaped roadway, which would connect Live Oak Canyon Road with Plano Trabuco Road, be deleted from the county’s master highway plan. On that long-range county document, it appears as a four-lane, commuter-size highway. County planners had scaled back that proposal to two lanes, but environmentalists said the impact and damage to wildlife habitat as well as scores of historic oak trees would be the same as for a wider highway.

Besides Nordeck, Commissioner Thomas Moody voted against Rose Canyon Road. Commissioner C. Douglas Leavenworth said he still favored the roadway because “no other alternative has come before us.”

Commission Chairman A. Earl Wooden and Commissioner Roger Slates were absent.

Without Rose Canyon Road, county planners said it may be difficult to allow 1,800 homes to be built unless Live Oak Canyon Road, an oak-lined scenic highway, is widened instead.

“It’s doubtful that we can go ahead with the level of development recommended without Rose Canyon Road,” said Michael Ruane, director of planning for the county’s Environmental Management Agency. Following the commission’s vote, Ruane said he plans to return to the commission within two weeks with a new development proposal based on existing roads or a localized system of new roads.