Corona Strives to Stay Ahead of Developers

Besides a dozen or so large ranch houses and a few scattered neighborhoods, south Corona is a land of tree farms, lemon and orange groves and well-weathered roads.

But within the next 20 years, city officials say, it will be the site of Corona’s newest planned communities, with a total of up to 12,500 homes stretching south into the lower Santa Ana foothills.

Now city and school officials are racing to close land deals for new schools and parks, hoping to stay one step ahead of the rush to build homes and shopping centers in south Corona. But already land prices have soared beyond their expectations.

In 1988, Corona city officials approved a plan to buy parkland and preserve greenbelt areas. Since then, land prices have doubled as demand for property in south Corona increases.

“We did not expect it to be this high,” said Jonathan C. Jones, senior park planner in Corona. “We need to buy this land as soon as possible.

“We are already (negotiating) for over $200,000 an acre.”

In its most recently completed purchase in January, the city paid $1.9 million for 10 acres--or $190,000 per acre--for a park at Buena Vista and Ontario avenues.

In contrast, when the park plan for south Corona was approved in 1988, city planners expected one acre to cost only $100,000. A year later, when the city started purchasing parkland, one acre cost $130,000.

South Corona already is being touted by developers as the site of the city’s premiere planned communities, which will be built on 5,000 acres bordered by Cleveland National Forest to the south, Oak Avenue to the west, Ontario Avenue to the north and State Street on the east.

South Corona is one of the last concentrations of agricultural land in the city, which for the past decade has undergone rapid growth as people from Orange and Los Angeles counties seek affordable housing.

In the early 1980s, about 100 landowners, citing high production costs and competitive markets for their citrus crops, asked the city to change the zoning in south Corona from agricultural to low-density residential.

City officials decided instead to create a south Corona General Plan amendment, which the City Council passed in 1986. Since then, developers have been drawing up plans and have worked with the city to provide such utilities as water, gas and sewage, as well as parkland.

The city plans to purchase a total of 154 acres for parks to serve about 40,000 residents, Jones said. The city has already acquired 25.5 acres, and developers have dedicated 51 acres, he said. The remaining 77.5 acres are in negotiation, he said.

The park plan calls for one major, 57-acre park, which will be built in the north-central portion of south Corona at Ontario and Kellogg avenues. There will also be four smaller parks of 20 acres each, and four neighborhood parks. The city also plans two “special use” parks that will serve as access to Cleveland National Forest.

The city has been purchasing the property with the proceeds of a $29-million bond that was issued last year, said Parks and Recreation Director Jim Manning.

Developers are required by the city to pay the cost of 3.5 acres of parkland for every 1,000 units they develop, and that fee, Jones said, is what will ultimately help the city come up with the money to pay off the bond.

Most developers will start building homes well after all the parkland is purchased, Jones said. By that time, it is likely that land prices will be even higher than they are now, he said, and developers will be forced to pay fees based on that year’s land prices.

“Whatever money we spend, we will be reimbursed,” Jones said. “The land develops, and the developer pays higher fees. We’re confident that the bond will be reimbursed.”

Developers also have the option of dedicating a portion of their land to the city for parks. The largest single development, the 900-acre Foothill Ranch, has dedicated a 21-acre community park, one four-acre neighborhood park and a Cleveland National Forest entrance park, said Thomas Paradise, the development’s project manager.

Foothill Ranch will also include a 15-acre greenbelt, which will wind its way through new neighborhoods.

The Foothill Ranch is being developed by Lyon Communities Inc., which now owns one-half of Foothill’s acreage. Lyon is in negotiation to buy the other 450 acres.

This summer, Lyon is expected to be the first to develop the area under the master plan when ground is broken on 200 homes, Paradise said. When completed in the next 20 years, the development is expected to have more than 3,200 homes, he said.

Paradise said that Lyon is also negotiating with the city to include a “heritage park” that could incorporate botanical gardens, a citrus orchard and an historic Foothill Ranch house.

The Lyon development also includes two school sites that the Corona-Norco Unified School District has bought over the past year. Like the city, the school district has also had to rush to stake its claim in south Corona.

“The land prices rose so rapidly that we couldn’t keep up,” said Melanie Murphy, a district spokeswoman.

Last year, school planners discovered that land values were increasing at 2% a month, Murphy said. The district needed to purchase sites for 12 schools--eight of them in south Corona--but didn’t have the money, she said.

So district officials formed what they call a unique partnership with the private sector to finance the schools. The district and AT&T; Credit Corp. formed a nonprofit corporation that will buy the sites with money borrowed from AT&T; Credit Corp. at an interest rate of 8%, Murphy said. AT&T; also has agreed to finance the 8% interest rate.

In the next five years, when the district is ready to build the schools, it will buy the land from the nonprofit corporation at today’s prices. It also will repay to AT&T; the money used to finance the 8% interest rate.

Because of AT&T;’s financing, the district will be spared the cost of increased land prices. The district is expected to eventually pay almost $49 million for the 12 school sites, she said. Without the partnership, the cost would have been about $85 million, she said.