21 Homes Built on Land O.C. Intended as Public : Planning: Engineer, title company blamed for mistake. Many of the homes have been sold. Officials recommend that county relinquish its claim to the 3.35 acres.

To the apparent surprise of Orange County planning officials, the developer of a planned community near Trabuco Canyon has built and is selling 21 homes on land that was supposed to be public open space.

“There was a mistake made and we’re trying to fix it,” said Richard Hunsaker, whose engineering firm processed planning documents for the homes, located within the Robinson Ranch development.

Although no one has yet moved into the 21 homes, many of the residences have been sold, according to Robert E. Hamilton, the county’s manager of program planning.

Top county staff officials are recommending that the Board of Supervisors resolve the matter next Tuesday by relinquishing the public’s claim to the home sites, encompassing 3.35 acres.

“I’m recommending let’s approve the adjustments so we can get these people into their homes,” said John W. Sibley, chief deputy director of the county’s Environmental Management Agency, referring to buyers of the new homes.

Sibley noted that, without action by the supervisors, present or future escrows for the 21 homes could be affected because the land does not have clear title.

Records show that Hunsaker’s engineering firm alerted the county to the problem in August. The homes are built in an unincorporated area between the northeast tip of O’Neill Regional Park and Cleveland National Forest.

Officials with the county and representatives of the developer of Robinson Ranch, the William Lyon Co., said on Thursday that the open-space designation should have been dealt with before the residences were built. The failure to do so was the fault of a title company and Hunsaker’s firm, according to county officials and Hunsaker.

“For some reason, the engineer who reviewed (the planning documents) didn’t catch this,” said Kenneth H. Bruner, executive assistant to Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose district encompasses the development. “Even more amazingly, the title company didn’t.”

If the open-space designation had been spotted in 1989, when final approvals were being sought for the homes in question, “the tract wouldn’t have gotten through,” according to Harold Scott, chief of the Environmental Management Agency’s right-of-way section. “We would have said, ‘Hey guys, there’s an easement here.’ ”

However, Bruner and other officials also confirmed that the Lyon Co. has provided 500 acres of open space, about 5% more than required by the county at Robinson Ranch.

Bruner said Supervisor Riley would probably vote to relinquish the open-space designation because there is no indication that the engineering firm or the title company acted deliberately. The title company involved, Ticor Title Insurance, was acquired last March by another firm. A representative of the successor firm, Chicago Title Insurance Co., did not respond to messages seeking his comment.

The county planning division’s recommendation to relinquish the open-space designation was criticized Thursday by land-use activists, including one official whose city is still grappling with a similar controversy.

“It seems that countywide, the controlling officials ignore the existing open-space protections,” said Councilman Paul M. Christiansen of Laguna Niguel, where a developer has built about 100 homes on 96 acres of land once intended as open space. “When there are major processing errors, these officials move for the convenience of the development community.”

Two civil lawsuits between Laguna Niguel and the developer, Taylor Woodrow Homes California Ltd., remain in court. The Orange County Grand Jury earlier this year ended an investigation with no criminal charges, but in a scathing report accused Taylor Woodrow of having “skirted the fringes of legality.” Taylor Woodrow has denied any wrongdoing.

The grand jury also made 14 recommendations to tighten the county’s oversight of land transfers and its review of development maps.

The failure to recognize the open-space designation before county approvals were granted for construction of the 21 homes at Robinson Ranch was also criticized by Sherry Lee Meddick, chairwoman of the Rural Canyons Residents Assn.

“This is just classic,” Meddick said. “They can build roads and solve all of our problems, but they can’t even figure out where to put their houses. . . . Do they have surveyors with a blind eye or a bad compass, or what?”

Hunsaker, whose Hunsaker & Associates performed the engineering for the acreage in question, said the mistake was unintentional.

“When we do a tentative tract map, we rely on a title company to give us all recorded documents,” Hunsaker said. “Yes, if we would have gone back through all our files, we would have picked it up.”

For Hunsaker, the episode rings familiar because his firm also performed the engineering for Taylor Woodrow’s development of the disputed 96 acres in Laguna Niguel. Hunsaker said his firm’s involvement in both transactions should not prompt any negative inference.

“In my estimation neither one of them should cause any dust,” Hunsaker said.

Richard M. Sherman, senior vice president and general counsel for the William Lyon Co., said his firm was unaware of the open-space designation until informed recently by Hunsaker & Associates. “Obviously, we would hope that (the county supervisors) would approve” relinquishing title to the land.

Records show that the acreage at Robinson Ranch was first designated as open space in April, 1984, following an offer of dedication from the RR-827 Partnership, the developer that preceded the William Lyon Co. as owner. The open-space designation was not noted in subsequent maps filed for Lyon in 1989 by Hunsaker.

“I hope to God it doesn’t happen very often,” said Scott, chief of the county’s right-of-way unit. “But it can happen. Nobody’s perfect, I guess, title companies included.”