IRVINE : Buffalo Ranch Site Preservation Urged

The Planning Commission voted last week to encourage the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency to preserve the former Buffalo Ranch site at the corner of MacArthur Boulevard and Ford Road.

The 1950s tourist attraction became historically important when master planner William L. Pereira set up offices in the ranch-like structures while designing the UC Irvine campus, the future city of Irvine and Newport Center in the early 1960s. The buildings, now the site of Lange Financial Plaza, are slated to be relocated, as Ford Road is scheduled to be moved several hundred feet to the north as part of the toll road project.

The commission voted 3 to 2 to encourage the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency to find ways to either save the historically significant buildings on the site, move them elsewhere, or extensively draw, photograph and record information about the structures for posterity before bulldozing them.

The corridor agency is proposing only that “consideration” be given to preserving the significant buildings on the site. The agency is recommending, though, that the buildings be photographed and the site plans reproduced.

Commissioners Kate Clark and Richard Salter opposed the measure, saying the city should use stronger wording to save the buildings on the site.

Irvine will be “literally giving away the farm” with its current request to the transportation corridor agency, Clark said. Unless the city takes a much stronger stand, the agency will almost certainly vote to build Ford Road right through the historic site, she said.

The corridor agency has proposed moving Ford Road between 500 feet and 1,300 feet northward on the east side of MacArthur to reduce noise to homes in Newport Beach. Ford Road is expected to become a major route once it is connected to the 15-mile toll road.

Pereira set up an office in the buildings of the former Buffalo Ranch tourist attraction and moved other ranch-type buildings to the site when he took it over, Irvine historian Judy Liebeck said. The site is one of the most historically significant locations in Irvine because of its association with Pereira, she said.

Liebeck is a member of Irvine’s Historical, Archeological and Paleontological Committee, which voted 4 to 2 last month to recommend that the Planning Commission push to preserve the buildings at the current site.

Lack of strong wording in the Planning Commission’s request to preserve the buildings will allow the 11 cities represented on the corridor agency board “to run right over them,” Liebeck said. “If Irvine is not demanding about it even in the least, what are the other cities supposed to think? I think Kate Clark is right that you have to take a stand.”

The Planning Commission’s recommendation to preserve the Buffalo Ranch site will be forwarded to the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Agency today, which is the last day for the public and government agencies to comment on the environmental impact of the proposed Ford Road realignment, said Charlene Gallina-Siri, an Irvine senior planner.