A Community to Be Built on a Theme of Art : Development: Foothill Ranch will abound in public artworks of all kinds and its builders will pick up the tab--without prompting by government.

One of Orange County’s largest landowners plans to charge developers of homes and businesses in a new Saddleback Valley planned community fees that would be used to adorn the community with murals, sculpture and other public art.

Officials in both the arts and real estate communities say they are unaware of any other project in Southern California in which a program like this for the arts has been run by developers, rather than government agencies.

Foothill Ranch is planned as a 2,700-acre, $2-billion community to be developed over the next 10 years in South County by Foothill Ranch Co., a subsidiary of Hon Development, the community’s creator.

The project is expected to include 3,900 housing units, commercial and industrial development geared to create more than 10,000 jobs, a 1,100-acre nature park, schools, a fire station and a library.

As planned, it would also feature a multimillion-dollar Foothill Urban Arts Program which would, over the next 10 to 15 years, sprinkle at least 100 sculptures, murals and other artworks throughout the urban village and offer performing art festivals and educational programs.

“Art won’t just exist in a few places,” said Maudette M. Ball, administrator of the arts program and a well-regarded arts executive who ran the Palos Verdes Art Center for five years until last April.

Likening the concept to European cities where “urban art is very much a part of life and every plaza has art,” Ball explained: “What we’re trying to do is make the arts a vital part of this community.”

Foothill Ranch Co. is requiring nearly all companies that buy its land and plan to build commercial, industrial and residential units to contribute up to 1% of their construction costs. The amount each company contributes would depend on the degree to which each developer would benefit from the art, according to Chris Downey, Foothill Ranch vice president and project manager.

The bulk of the fees, which would generate “at least several million” dollars for art, would probably be charged industrial and commercial builders, who are expected to develop 8 million square feet of space--about $1 billion worth of building, Downey said. Home buyers would bear a relatively small share of the program’s cost, he added.

However, the project’s first three residential developers--Bramalea California Ltd., William Lyon Co. and J.M. Peters Co. Inc.--have already agreed to pay several hundred thousand dollars, Downey said.

Developers of Southern California’s planned communities have long embellished their projects with art, even it it has simply been a bas relief on the stone markers at the entrance to a subdivision.

And nationwide, there are numerous public art programs underwritten by developers’ fees imposed by local governments. The city of Brea has a 14-year-old program which so far has produced 91 artworks, a Brea city official said.

However, the Foothill Ranch program may be unprecedented, perhaps statewide. Claudia Chapline, head of the California Arts Council’s public art program, said she was not aware of any similar programs in the state.

“Public art programs are usually mandated by a city or county,” Chapline said. “I think the fact that Foothill is planning for art from the very beginning is significant and certainly shows an enlightened approach.”

It is also a strong indication that developers’ attitudes toward fees for art have changed markedly, said Chapline, who recently delivered a lecture on public art to Foothill Ranch planners.

“Now we’re seeing that developers are viewing art as an asset in marketing,” she said.

The Foothill Urban Arts Program is an outgrowth of Hon Development’s “commitment to maintaining and enhancing open space” and its “concept of addressing the whole person,” Ball said, adding that the firm will keep about half the community’s land open. The company also has moved 600 oak trees for preservation.

Planning for Foothill Ranch has gone on over eight years. But Hon Executive Vice President Gerald E. Buck, a partner of Foothill Ranch Co., came up with the idea for the art project about three years ago.

Buck, who owns a collection dominated by early California art, part of which is often loaned to local institutions, said, “We have a unique opportunity to do something special.”

In June, the arts program will be launched officially with a 5K and 10K run, planned to be an annual event, to raise money for arts education programs, Ball said.

The art planned for the program, ranging from traditional to contemporary, will be mostly three-dimensional and be either existing or commissioned works by established and emerging artists, Ball said.

None of the developers working with Foothill Ranch Co. have resisted the art fee, Downey said. “I think the developers we are working with . . . are all experienced enough to understand the benefits of a program like this to the whole community.”

However, it is conceivable that in the future, in lieu of the fee, firms may elect to donate an artwork of their choice, providing it is approved by the arts program’s managers.

County officials have endorsed the art program as well.

“I think it’s another in the line of outstanding, forward-thinking ideas that the Foothill Ranch Co. has had in regards to how they want to see this community developed,” said Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, whose district includes the planned community.

Performing arts events envisioned for Foothill Ranch include outdoor music or dance performances, said Moss, who is also administrative director of Buck’s art collection.

“There will be a lot of open plazas where people will naturally congregate and stroll and dine (where) we foresee concerts or children’s arts festivals,” she said.

Plans for arts education include signs identifying artworks, tours, seminars, and conferences and lectures by out-of-state artists commissioned for works. All events will be open to everyone, not just Foothill Ranch residents, Ball said.

The first artworks will be selected by the Foothill Urban Arts Program task force, a group that includes Ball, Buck, Downey, two Foothill Ranch landscape architects, its chief architect, and Northern California artist Tony Sheets, son of the late Millard Sheets, who produced several public artworks in Southern California and elsewhere. This group will soon create an advisory panel of arts professionals, Ball said.

Developers paying the art program fee “may or may not” have a say in choosing what their money will go for, Downey said. “We have not worked those details out yet.”

One real estate expert believes that allowing developers to pick their art could spell trouble.

“I see a situation where some of them might want statues of themselves,” said Kelly McDermott of the housing consultants Market Profiles in Costa Mesa, with a laugh. “Seriously, it could open up a can of worms.”

For long-term funding, particularly after development has ceased, a nonprofit operating foundation would be established to support the program, Ball said. It would also pay for art maintainance and preservation, a critical concern sometimes overlooked by public art planners, art experts say.

Requiring a fee for art is unusual because the housing market is slowing down and also because prices are so high. Anything that adds to prices might discourage builders from buying land and--further down the pipeline--discourage consumers from buying houses.

“This can work in master-planned communities, where one developer has control of many thousands of acres,” said Thomas F. Daly, director of governmental affairs at the Building Industry Assn.’s Orange County chapter. “But there are only a few of those left in Orange County.”

Times staff writer Michael Flagg contributed to this article.