Anaheim Wins the Battle for Gypsum Canyon

A powerful local planning agency cleared the way Wednesday for Anaheim to annex Gypsum Canyon for a housing development, and county officials signaled afterward that they may soon drop their own efforts to acquire the property.

Supervisors and other officials said the board will almost certainly abandon a proposed Gypsum Canyon landfill when it takes the issue up in December. The county has also filed a lawsuit challenging Anaheim’s assessment of the environmental impact of the canyon housing development, but that suit is now expected to be withdrawn as well, officials said.

“I don’t think we should be suing just for the sake of suing,” Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said. “If there are problems with the project, we should address them in other ways at this point. I don’t think a lawsuit is necessary anymore.”

Board of Supervisors Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez said he expects to vote against the landfill proposal next month. And Supervisor Don R. Roth, while cautioning that he will not make a decision until after he receives a full staff report, said that he cannot justify supporting the project in light of its cost. Two votes are enough to kill the landfill.

Those comments come on the heels of the board’s decision last month to shelve a long-debated proposal to build a jail in Gypsum Canyon, and they appear to herald the end of the county’s hopes for buying the 2,500-acre property just east of Anaheim.

With the county government rapidly running out of options, officials agree that it now seems all but inevitable that Anaheim will win the battle for Gypsum Canyon and the site will become a huge new residential community known as Mountain Park.

The latest official boost for that project came Wednesday as the Local Agency Formation Commission, known as LAFCO, approved Anaheim’s annexation request and the proposed 8,000-home development, despite pleas from environmentalists.

Approval from LAFCO was the last major step needed to allow the project to move ahead with specific site development. Construction could begin within a few years.

Mountain Park developers have pledged to preserve about 60% of the project site as open space.

But several environmental groups and researchers nonetheless maintain that the project could endanger mountain lions and Tecate cypresses, among other species. The local chapter of the Sierra Club has opposed the Mountain Park project, and the Friends of the Tecate Cypress has filed suit to block its construction.

But James H. Flora, chairman of the five-member commission, said he supported the proposal and commended its backers for having accommodated many of the environmentalists’ objections.

“I think it’s a great thing for the county,” Flora said. “And I think a great deal of concern has been taken to mitigate” the potential environmental problems.

Supervisors Roth and Vasquez--each of whom has opposed the use of Gypsum Canyon as a jail site--are members of LAFCO. They joined the other three representatives in voting to approve the annexation.

Representatives of the Irvine Co., which owns the property and has proposed the development, hailed the action. A spokesman who attended the commission meeting said its vote will now help clear the way for the company to begin building homes.

“We still have a few obstacles to overcome,” said C. Bradley Olson, president of Foothill Community Builders, the division of the Irvine Co. that is overseeing the Mountain Park project. But he added: “We’re very pleased with today’s action.”

The county landfill proposal posed a potentially serious problem for the company’s plans, but even many supporters of that idea now are privately resigned to its failure. Financial and political problems dog the landfill proposal, officials said, and it is expected to be rejected by the board.

According to Roth, the county’s waste-enterprise fund, which would pay for the landfill, is running about $6 million under budget.

“The issue becomes economics,” he added. “Isn’t it kind of difficult to imagine paying for this? It’s like going out to buy a Mercedes when you’re already $5,000 in debt on your Chevy.”

Vasquez agreed with Roth and indicated that he would not vote for a Gypsum Canyon landfill.

Under state law, it takes four votes for the supervisors to take land from an unwilling seller, so unless either Roth or Vasquez relented, the landfill would be dead on arrival when taken up by the board.

The supervisors were reluctant to discuss the lawsuit in detail. But several agreed that with both the jail and landfill proposals on the rocks, and the Anaheim annexation complete, there seems little point in pressing the litigation.

“I think today’s action might have a bearing on that lawsuit,” Vasquez said.

In fact, other county staffers said that the suit has already been put on hold. Speaking on the condition that they not be identified, several officials said the board had instructed the county counsel’s office not to spend time or money pursuing the litigation--in effect, mothballing it until the supervisors formally reject the landfill.

Even Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, the only supervisor to back the Gypsum Canyon jail proposal every time consistently, said there now appears to be little hope of the county ever acquiring the canyon.

“I guess it’s probably time for us to assess this whole issue and see what, if anything, is being accomplished by pursuing the lawsuit,” he said. “I think we’re at that point.”