Controversial South County Home Plan OKd

After an emotional session marked by finger-pointing and personal attacks, the Orange County Board of Supervisors rebuffed opponents of the Las Flores Planned Community on Wednesday by agreeing to the construction of up to 2,500 homes next to an environmentally fragile strip of O’Neill Regional Park.

At a public hearing, project opponents warned that the South County development by the Santa Margarita Co. would further endanger Arroyo Trabuco, one of Southern California’s richest natural wildlife habitats--an area the opponents charged is already being polluted by surrounding developments.

The hearing ended with supervisors voting 4-1 in favor of the project, which will lie just south of the company’s Rancho Santa Margarita development and east of Mission Viejo.

Developers and planners hailed the plan as a unique opportunity to build low-cost housing while remaining mindful of environmental concerns. But opponents criticized the project as a potential environmental nightmare and denounced county land planning procedures as a miserable failure.

Witnesses lined up to argue their case during the three-hour hearing, some with visual aids that included bags of trash and a jumbo jar of murky water taken from the creek that crosses the canyon. County environmental planners defended the project, however, noting that nearly 60% of the development would remain as open space and that several steps had been taken to shelter the arroyo from the development.

The Las Flores Planned Community will provide a blend of affordable housing, job sites, schools, parks and an unprecedented amount of open space, said Santa Margarita President Anthony R. Moiso.

In addition, the developer must build additional roads and highways that will be needed to handle the influx of residents into 2,500 homes before the start of construction, which company officials said would probably begin in late 1993.

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, the only board member to oppose the project, argued that the planning staff’s requirement that 60% of the homes be priced below $250,000--a condition aimed at helping first-time home buyers--would not work and would run counter to a free market system.

However, Stanton praised the project and dismissed environmental concerns raised by its opponents. “I believe that humans have a right to live and love and work and worship where they want to,” he said.

At the hearing, Moiso noted that the project had been through 11 Planning Commission hearings and numerous revisions over two years. He said the process demonstrated the rigor with which development is now regulated in Orange County.

“All of us at the Santa Margarita Co. and at the Rancho Mission Viejo are proud to present this project to you,” Moiso said. “It’s been a long time coming and a difficult road to this hearing.”

But opposing opinions led to frequent angry--and at times personal--exchanges between project opponents and the supervisors. One woman was driven to tears, and at one point, Supervisor Thomas F. Riley quietly suggested to fellow board members that the sheriff be called to remove an angry speaker who refused to give up the podium after her alloted five minutes had expired.

Environmental activist Sherry Meddick stubbornly hugged the podium in response to Board Chairman Don R. Roth’s insistence that she sit down, prompting a project opponent in the audience to jump up and volunteer her five minutes so that Meddick could finish her testimony.

“We need to have equity with the developers who get an awful lot more of your ear,” said Sharon Banning, a Trabuco Oaks resident, in urging more time for Meddick. “I’m not talking publicly. I’m talking privately behind closed doors.”

“This is our only opportunity to achieve any type of equity and to try and squelch it--I’m really disappointed in you,” Banning told Roth.

Roth snapped back: “I’m disappointed in you too.”

Another opponent, Trabuco Oaks resident Bruce Conn, also lashed out at the board. He charged that land planning has “failed miserably” in the county, calling the proposed Las Flores community a “Frankensteinian project” and referring to Moiso as the “Charles Keating” of land development.

Conn reminded Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez of a drive they had taken together to O’Neill Park shortly after Vasquez’s election and recalled that Vasquez was “shocked” at the proximity of the houses to the park and had pledged to prevent future encroachments.

That brought an angry response from the usually reserved Vasquez, who shook his finger and said Conn took his comments out of context. Vasquez said his questions about the proximity of the homes to the park had been adequately explained later by county staff.

Later, Conn shouted a warning from his seat in the audience to a county staffer who picked up from the podium a jar of cloudy yellow water, which Conn said he had collected that morning from the creek running through Arroyo Trabuco.

“Don’t flush it down the toilet,” Conn shouted out. “That stuff is poisonous.”

PROPOSED HOUSING PROJECT

Las Flores Planned Community Developer: Santa Margarita Co. Size: 1,005 acres, with about 60% to remain as open space. Maximum number of housing units: 2,500, including single-family homes, apartments and townhouses. Location: South of Rancho Santa Margarita. Benefits claimed by proponents: Will provide affordable housing to first-time home buyers, create 800 permanent jobs and require the developer to contribute at least $20 million for road construction. Adverse impact claimed by opponents: Will endanger wildlife in Arroyo Trabuco, which includes deer and several birds being considered for the federal endangered species list; will pollute creek with urban runoff; will generate 32,000 additional vehicle trips a day, adding to traffic jams and air pollution.