Not in Laguna, but What’s the Range on That Bulldozer?

So they partied hearty at the Hotel Laguna the other night. Environmentalists and developers got all kissy-face and whispered sweet nothings in each other’s ears.

And the lion shall lie down with the lamb.

Yes, it was a moment of truly biblical proportions.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . .

Lest you think that the merry band in Laguna Beach has saved Orange County from bulldozers, object lessons abound to return you to reality.

Had you been able to sit through a 2 1/2-hour session of the County Planning Commission on Tuesday, you would have had one rather sobering example.

A 2,500-unit residential development known as Las Flores Planned Community hit a temporary snag, but not even opponents of the project seem to think it’s in much trouble. “It’ll evolve and be developed,” Ray Chandos of the Rural Canyons Conservation Fund said matter-of-factly after the meeting. When it’s built, it’ll bring a few thousand more cars into already-crowded South County and have a traffic impact that county planners haven’t computed yet.

Indeed, only a handful of people spoke in opposition to it Tuesday, and the organized opposition has focused not on stopping the project but on pushing back some of its boundaries to protect wildlife.

Some of those who have been in the trenches of other development fights know that one skirmish, such as the Laguna victory, does not a war win.

Chandos is a veteran of the successful fight to save Laguna Canyon but said after the commission meeting Tuesday that he considers the developing of Las Flores to be pretty much a foregone conclusion. He sounded that note even after two of the five commissioners expressed reservations about the project. Commissioner Thomas Moody told the developers that they’ve picked “a helluva time to be asking for an extra 2,500 units.” He said the public is “fed up” with development.

Dorothy Hudecek isn’t so sure. She was part of a losing effort to stop a huge residential project that will change the face of Orange during the next 20 years. Although she thinks that her group could have succeeded if it had had more time, she’s not convinced that the success of the Laguna environmentalists can be transferred to North County.

“For the most part, they have an entirely different mind-set down there,” Hudecek said. “One thing about those people, they have loaded their council with environmental people. If you’re not an environmentalist, you don’t sit on the council.”

But Peter DeSimone, the manager of the National Audubon Society Starr Ranch Sanctuary in Trabuco Canyon, said organized opposition hasn’t surfaced to the Las Flores development: “Not enough people know what’s going on. You have people just now learning about Las Flores who are going to be impacted by the traffic from it.”

However, he said, it’s not necessarily too late for the public to get involved. “You organize something like the (Laguna) Canyon walk, and 50 people could have showed up. But 7,500 people showed up. On Las Flores, we’re working with the commission and seeing how things shake out. If it turns out that the process goes wrong, then the next step is to see what the public thinks about it.”

Everyone knows that cities and the county can’t pick up the tab on every proposed development, as is the plan in Laguna Beach. “Things are pretty seriously going down as far as open space in Orange County is concerned,” DeSimone said. “I think it’d be premature to go partying because we got one piece (in Laguna Canyon) preserved. There’s a lot of work left to do here to plan the rest of the development in Orange County.”

DeSimone is obviously right. Flush with the victory in Laguna Canyon, which has unfolded during the last decade, some made euphoric claims about the historic nature of the fight and how it might signal a new day in Orange County.

But in other parts of the county, residents know that much of the Laguna giddiness was probably the champagne talking.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.