Business Group Unveils Plan to Defend Tollway in Courtroom : Transportation: Opponents say the membership of the new coalition proves that the project is designed for new development and not as a traffic aid.

A group of prominent business and development interests--concerned about a legal challenge to Orange County’s first toll road--has formed a coalition and hired attorneys to help defend the proposed San Joaquin Hills Corridor project.

The private group, which calls itself the Corridor Business Coalition, intends to raise money and provide legal services that will augment the efforts of the public agency that has been sued--the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies.

Robert K. Break, the attorney whose firm has been retained by the coalition, said Tuesday that he intends to go to court as early as this week to seek standing as a co-defendant in the lawsuit.

“We’re looking at trying to coordinate with the TCA (Transportation Corridor Agencies) counsel,” said Break, a member of the firm of Latham & Watkins. Break said his clients’ aim is to ensure that the “private sector . . . is heard.”

The lawsuit, filed on April 12, alleges that the Transportation Corridor Agencies has flouted California environmental requirements and seeks to block construction of the six-lane tollway. The suit was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Laguna Greenbelt Inc., the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, Stop Polluting Our Newport and Save Our San Juan.

The proposed San Joaquin Hills corridor, with adjoining land also set aside for possible mass-transit use, would stretch 19 miles from Jamboree Road in Newport Beach to Interstate 5, on the northern fringe of San Juan Capistrano.

Opposition to the road has been vehement in Laguna Beach and in San Juan Capistrano, where angry residents have packed meetings to voice their dissent. In San Juan Capistrano, the anti-tollway activists have begun a campaign to recall two council members who have served on the board of the Transportation Corridor Agencies.

Break and others familiar with the pro-tollway legal effort said the recently formed Corridor Business Coalition is being supported financially by most of the major landholders to be affected by the San Joaquin Hills project and by other business interests throughout Orange County.

Those groups include the Building Industry Assn.’s Orange County chapter, the Irvine Co., the 900-firm member Industrial League of Orange County, the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, the Federated Chambers of Commerce of Orange County and the Orange County Transportation Coalition.

When informed Tuesday of the development interests’ desire to enter the lawsuit, Joel R. Reynolds, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that it buttressed a contention of tollway opponents: that the road’s purpose is to make possible new development--not alleviate existing traffic congestion.

“This is a project that’s been proposed and is being pursued by developers,” Reynolds said, adding that he would oppose granting “unlimited” standing in the lawsuit to the Corridor Business Coalition.

However, at least one major South County landowner--the Mission Viejo Co.--will not participate with the coalition, according to a company representative.

“It’s our philosophy that TCA (the Transportation Corridor Agencies), which is a governmental agency, should be defending itself,” said Wendy Wetzel, the Mission Viejo Co.’s vice president for corporate affairs.

No trial date for the lawsuit has yet been set in Orange County Superior Court. Tollway proponents have said they hope to resolve the litigation this summer and break ground on the road by year’s end.

An executive of the Corridor Business Coalition said his group’s intention in seeking to join forces with the Transportation Corridor Agencies is to ensure that the toll road’s potential impacts on the regional economy are recognized.

“Our objective is to play whatever role we can in getting the suit resolved as quickly as possible,” said coalition treasurer Todd B. Nicholson, who is also president of the Industrial League of Orange County.

Nicholson would not speculate about how much money might be raised but termed the lawsuit as “one more roadblock in a 17-year effort to get a vital link built in the county.” If a judge allows the private coalition to intervene as a co-defendant, the Transportation Corridor Agencies’ financial burden in fighting the lawsuit also could be eased.

In any event, both sides acknowledge the significance of the lawsuit to the proposed tollway’s future.

“It is life or death,” said Dana W. Reed, an attorney who is chairman of the Orange County Transportation Commission. “It’s literally that simple. If they are not successful, the project doesn’t get built.”