City Leaders See Environmental Showpiece Tract

The land, roughly 6 square miles of mustard-covered, sloping terrain in and around Tonner Canyon, is visible on both sides of the Orange Freeway as you drive north from downtown.

It is now undeveloped, privately held and outside city boundaries. But Brea officials hope that this acreage at the border of Orange and Los Angeles counties will someday be a city showcase for innovative, environmentally sound development. The city recently hired seven outside planning experts to help guide a study for the area.

The impetus for the planning study came a year ago, when Larry Lizotte, whose LDM Development Inc. of Laguna Hills holds an option to develop the 500 acres in Tonner Canyon, told the city that his company envisioned a mixture of houses, businesses and other uses.

In response, City Council members started a competition that was to lead to the selection of outside experts who would study Lizotte’s acreage and virtually the rest of the undeveloped land north of the city limits that could be annexed.

Brea’s formal, written request seeking bids from the outside planning firms, circulated in June 1990, said:

“The City Council has emphasized a desire that this project proceed with ‘visionary’ objectives rather than ‘reactive’ ones. In other words, this project should represent Brea’s vision for the future instead of merely responding to immediate development pressures.”

And so was born what came to be known as the North Brea Sphere of Influence Study. Last summer, five teams of planning experts sought the contract. The project has since been reduced in scope, with many civil-engineering tasks eliminated. Still Brea Mayor Wayne D. Wedin, staff planners and others say they are excited about what can be accomplished.

“I think it’s a landmark project that will allow the development community to see how ecologically sensitive we can be in developing hillside areas,” said J. Todd Stoutenborough, one of the seven consultants being hired to aid Brea’s in-house planning staff with the project.

The City Council and Planning Commission are scheduled to jointly discuss the project again on May 8. Officials hope to generate a significant level of involvement from local residents.

Waiting with interest is Lizotte, who referred to Brea officials’ efforts in 1990 to select a team of outside planning experts when he said: “They hemmed and hawed around. They were extremely slow.”