San Juan Fund for Open Space Buys a Field of Potential Pitfalls : Land use: The city has the enviable, yet delicate, task of deciding how to allocate $21 million from municipal bonds designed to preserve open space. Preservationists and recreation boosters each have an agenda.

It is a problem most city officials around the state might envy: What to do with $21 million?

Despite these lean financial times, city fathers in this 215-year-old mission city are facing that unusual proposition. Flush with cash proceeds from municipal bond sales, the City Council has embarked on what its consultants called a “Field of Dreams”: three months of planning how to spend the money.

While city officials elsewhere may be envious, however, here they are cautious. Most local officials agree that this is a field mined with potential political pitfalls.

The money, the result of the successful April, 1990, “Save Open Space” bond election, is earmarked for buying and preserving the Capistrano Valley’s revered farmlands, as well as for installing new ball fields and recreation facilities.

The acquisition process began with the purchase last year of the 56-acre Kinoshita Farm in the valley flatlands near the city border with Dana Point. Talks are under way to buy another 120 acres in the northwest of town near the confluence of Oso and Trabuco creeks.

But the most difficult task may be the sticky political process of determining how to use the properties, city officials say. As evidenced in recent public workshops and surveys, opinions on the best plan for the acreage stretch the full length of this historic farming valley.

“I feel like we’re playing Solomon, only we’re trying to cut the baby into 15 pieces,” Mayor Kenneth E. Friess said. “We need to remember what this measure was all about. Agricultural preservation was the No. 1 issue.”

The bond measure began as a somewhat unlikely proposition: asking landowners to tax themselves over the next 25 years to buy 140 acres of dying orange groves and forgotten farmlands.

But the measure was sold as a way to preserve the fading farming character associated with the valley since Mission San Juan Capistrano was established in 1776, said City Councilman Gary L. Hausdorfer, who as mayor in 1990 is credited with being the measure’s creator. It passed with more than 70% of the vote.

“Frankly, it was almost a last resort,” Hausdorfer said. “We had tried for so many years to preserve agriculture here, but it was being done on the backs of our local farmers. . . . We finally came to the conclusion that there would be no Santa Claus on this issue. If the city was really serious about this, it would have to be done with the taxpayers involved.”

The taxpayers who walked the streets promoting the measure were actually a coalition of the town’s varied special interest groups--including organizers of youth sports, senior citizens, equestrians and the city’s powerful historic preservationists.

Now, with city property taxes showing the 6.4% increase from the bond measure and payoff time for those interest groups approaching, city officials are warning all factions of the coalition to be patient.

“Everyone in town has a slightly different agenda,” Hausdorfer said. “My goal hasn’t changed one iota. It is to be true to the voters and acquire 120 acres, have some passive open space, some recreation facilities and a senior center. . . . But in San Juan Capistrano, we have often taken a longer view to reach our goals and objectives. We’ll need to do that here also.”

At the last of 10 public workshops Sept. 30, representatives of the various special interests again lobbied for their groups. Little League officials urged allocations for new ball fields, soccer coaches did likewise, and some residents expressed the old not-in-my-back-yard argument: Ball fields are fine, but don’t bring their lights and traffic to our part of town.

As for the town’s preservationists, they remain adamant that much of the newly acquired land should not become lighted ballparks or equestrian centers but should remain simply open space.

“There are a lot of different constituencies in this town,” said Mark Clancey of the Friends of Historic San Juan Capistrano, a nonprofit preservationist group. “It would be very unfortunate if this became a contest between those different special interest groups. . . . It’s absolutely critical that what we do reflects the will of as many people as possible and not the ability of various factions to promote their desires.”

As a means to best decide what to do with the new land, the city has prepared a master plan for open space that outlines several potential scenarios, based on local surveys.

Clancey said the survey results indicate that his worst fears of political arm-twisting may become reality.

“The organized sports people have the upper hand in this, and they have had from the beginning,” he said. “We fear the property will become overly developed. But we also think that the majority of people in this town still believe that preservation of agricultural lands was the objective of the measure.”

Hausdorfer, after expressing his pride that the community paved the way for other similar community purchases--such as Laguna Laurel by Laguna Beach--warned the city’s residents to remember what the measure was all about.

“If we lose sight of the basic priorities . . . we fail,” he said.