SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Mayor to Get Award as Conservationist

President George Bush has named Mayor Gary L. Hausdorfer one of the first recipients of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Award for outstanding achievement in preservation of natural resources.

Hausdorfer, who is seeking his fourth term on the City Council in the Nov. 6 election, is being honored for his role in winning approval of a $120-million bond measure allowing the city to buy and preserve up to 140 acres of farmland as open space.

The mayor was nominated by Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), the congressman who represents South Orange County. President Bush will present the awards to 70 first-time recipients at a ceremony Monday afternoon in the White House, Hausdorfer said.

“I’m proud to receive the award,” he said. “But it is really a tribute to San Juan Capistrano and the citizens (who worked) to save open space. We did a bond issue without the help of any major landowner or an outside organization. It was done at a grass-roots level by a whole lot of people who care about this city.”

Areas targeted for preservation include about 100 acres in the northwest end of the city, near Junipero Serra Road, and the 43-acre Kinoshita Farms on Alipaz Street.

“It seems to me what our residents did can be a model for other communities within Orange County and throughout the nation,” City Manager Stephen B. Julian said. “Evidently, President Bush agrees.”

Preliminary plans for the San Juan Capistrano farmland include recreation facilities, a community center and a agricultural demonstration site. Hausdorfer said that the first $5 million in bonds has been sold and that a partial purchase of open space is being negotiated. He would not disclose further details.

Other land-preservation techniques used in the city include a 13-year-old limit on home-building and 16-year-old restrictions on ridgeline construction.

“San Juan Capistrano has done things for years that everybody else thought was weird or different,” Hausdorfer said.

The Bush Administration established the Theodore Roosevelt Award as a tribute to the 26th U.S. president, who founded the national park system in the early 1900s.