Countywide : County Sells Land to Tollway Agency

Overriding objections from environmentalists, a unanimous Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to sell a 66-acre South County parcel for $7.7 million as right of way for the controversial San Joaquin Hills toll road.

The supervisors also agreed to loan about $700,000 to the buyer, the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency.

Environmentalist have fought for years to block the $778-million toll road project, which is scheduled to begin construction later this year. And several activists renewed their pleas Tuesday.

“I urge you as a taxpayer to cut the people’s losses on this ill-conceived project today,” implored conservationist Anita Mangels of Laguna Beach.

Michael Phillips, executive director of the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, maintained that the toll road had been billed all along by its backers as a privately financed project. “ ‘No taxpayer money for the toll road,’ it couldn’t have been any clearer if they said, ‘Read my lips,’ ” he said.

But corridor agency spokesman Mike Stockstill said after the meeting that “there were no past pledges. . . . These people are putting words in our mouths.”

“I just don’t agree with them,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton said afterward.

Environmental Management Agency Director Michael M. Ruane also rejected the critics’ contentions, saying that “the toll road is just absolutely essential to the county’s General Plan.”

The toll road, under development since the mid-1970s, would run 15 miles through South County and link the existing terminus of the Corona del Mar Freeway at Jamboree Road with Interstate 5 near San Juan Capistrano.

The undeveloped parcel the county is selling is in Sycamore Hills in the Laguna Canyon area, at the northeast portion of the junction of El Toro and Laguna Canyon roads. It will provide a right of way for the corridor.

The county bought the land last year from the city of Laguna Beach for $7.6 million, along with about 70 acres that were preserved as open space.

Under Tuesday’s agreement, the corridor agency can defer payment on the $7.7-million sale price until December, 1994, or until bonds for the project are sold--whichever comes first, county officials said.