MISSION VIEJO : Retail/Office Center OKd by Planners

The basics of suburban life--doctors’ offices, auto centers and shopping plazas--have long been scarce in northern Mission Viejo.

Residents there have learned to drive several miles to the nearest major shopping center or brave the traffic at the closer but heavily congested commercial district along El Toro Road near Interstate 5.

But Monday, the Planning Commission took a major step toward bringing one-stop shopping into the area, approving a diverse retail/office complex covering 154,000 square feet.

Owned by the Mission Viejo Co., the Trabuco Hills Center will feature medical offices, an auto service center, a restaurant, retail shops and a five-screen movie theater on a 20-acre site along Santa Margarita Parkway between Marguerite Parkway and Los Alisos Boulevard.

“I think the center is needed in this end of the community,” said Commissioner Joseph Lowe. “We need a first-class medical complex and a movie theater there. Why should people have to drive to south Mission Viejo or El Toro to catch a movie?”

But the movie theaters, which will seat 1,450 people, have made the project controversial. About 90 residents of the Evergreen Homes subdivision protested the proximity of the cinema complex to their houses when the plans were presented to the commission last January.

A favorable commission vote was subsequently appealed to the City Council, which sent the project back to the Mission Viejo Co., asking the developer to address the neighborhood’s concerns.

The developer responded by moving the theater complex farther from the homes and inserting the medical building between the cinemas and the neighbors.

Only about 10 people showed up to argue against the new plans, which Commissioner Ben Meharg attributed to the improved site plans.

“I think the revised plan put to rest their fears about the theater,” he said.

The Mission Viejo Co. has indicated it hopes to open the shopping center by mid-1991.