Anaheim OKs 8,000-Home Project Despite Suits : Development: Legal challenges over Gypsum Canyon could delay construction for years on 3,179-acre spread.

Facing separate legal challenges from the county and a local environmental group, the city gave final approval to plans for the largest housing development in Anaheim history.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve zoning and the Irvine Co.’s specific plans for the transformation of Gypsum Canyon into a new community of nearly 8,000 homes.

But even with the council’s approval, officials say it could be years before the first homes are built on the 3,179-acre spread called Mountain Park.

In separate lawsuits, filed within days of each other, the county is seeking to reserve the canyon land as a site for a new jail or landfill, while the Fullerton-based Friends of Tecate Cypress still hope to preserve the property in its rugged natural state.

“We’re confident that the environmental impact report on the project contains a number of faults,” Tecate president Connie Spenger said Tuesday, referring to the lawsuit’s charges that inadequate attention had been given to the preservation of wildlife habitats. “This project was rushed through, and the plan is way to big for that area.”

In its lawsuit, the county also challenges the environmental study of the development, approved last month by the council. The lawsuit says the report dealt inadequately with grading and blasting issues, land-use, the circulation of new traffic in the area and the provision for public services.

But City Councilman Tom Daly said Tuesday: “I have praised the track record of the Irvine Co. as being the envy of the country. The Irvine Co. builds world-class residential communities.”

The council’s vote appeared largely perfunctory and sparked little reaction in the crowded City Council chamber.

City Planning Director Joel Fick said the Mountain Park project “received more analysis by the Planning Commission than any other similar residential project.”

Irvine Co. officials have defended the assessment of the impact of its development, saying the plans have been “sensitive” to the environment and include large portions of open space surrounding the new community.

“With the impact of the lawsuits, we don’t know when we will begin” construction, said C. Bradley Olson, president of Foothill Community Builders, a division of the Irvine Co. “Our next step is to get to court and get to the lawsuits.”

Olson said he did not expect to find any new issues raised in the lawsuits that have not already been addressed at public hearings on the project.

Planned for nearly two years, the housing development has rallied strong support among city officials who have been fearful that the county would move to build a jail in the canyon near what are considered Anaheim’s most exclusive residential communities.

The Board of Supervisors in 1987 identified the canyon as a preferred site for a new jail.

The Irvine Co.’s plan, meanwhile, calls for homes--expected to cost between $200,000 and $500,000--and 179 acres for commercial uses. Also included are plans for three elementary schools, a middle school, high school, three neighborhood parks, two community parks and possibly a fire station.