MISSION VIEJO : Mayor Tables Plan for Development

Mayor Robert A. Curtis on Tuesday shelved his plan to push for approving a huge Mission Viejo Co. commercial complex in exchange for the developer’s giving the city 7.2 acres to build a new civic center.

The proposal was to have been the subject of a public hearing at tonight’s City Council meeting, but Curtis said Tuesday that he will table the plan.

The deal will instead be included in overall negotiations with the developer over how to use the remaining open space in Mission Viejo, Curtis said.

However, the public will still be able to comment tonight on the recent land struggle in Mission Viejo between the city and the company that began building the planned community in the 1960s.

“We still want to know what (the public’s) goals are for the city and what they want and what they wish to derive from negotiations” with the Mission Viejo Co., Curtis said.

The conflict concerns two public documents that map out land-use in the city: the state-required general plan--the city’s blueprint for commercial and residential construction--and a development agreement with the Mission Viejo Co. that the county approved shortly before the city’s 1988 incorporation.

In October, the council passed a general plan that changed how the agreement allowed land to be developed in several areas. That action resulted in the Mission Viejo Co.’s suing the city over the general plan. Council members subsequently passed a 45-day building moratorium that could be extended to a year at their Jan. 28 meeting.