BREA : Olinda Heights Tract Announced

Santa Fe Energy Resources, founded in the 1890s to drill for oil in the Olinda hills, is going into the residential development business.

While continuing to produce oil and gas at its Olinda oil fields, it will turn 277 acres of its property into a residential community to be called Olinda Heights, company officials said Wednesday.

However, the Olinda project site, at Carbon Canyon Road and Valencia Avenue, with 195 producing and non-producing oil wells, will undergo a complex, $2-million, 18-month environmental cleanup before the project is started, they said.

They called the cleanup an “environmental rebirth” of the oil fields.

The Orange County Health Care Agency, which approved the plan last year, will monitor the cleanup.

The project is in line with the city’s planned development and preservation of the 4,762-acre sphere of influence area north of the current boundaries but expected to be annexed to the city of Brea.

Once annexed, Brea is expected to grow by 70%.

“We want to build something in Brea that will be a tribute to the city and its citizens. We want to be good neighbors,” said Ron Keith of the Koll Co., which will manage the project for Santa Fe Energy Resources.

Keith spoke Wednesday at a community workshop, sponsored by the Brea Planning Commission, to get community input about the project. Another workshop is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at council chambers.

The project site, near the Olinda-Olinda Alpha landfill and Carbon Canyon Regional Park, is free of any hazardous or toxic elements, according to initial tests. There were no contaminants in ground-water samples. However, non-hazardous wastes common to oil field operations were found, according to the Planning Commission.

The cleanup involves “bio-remediation” technology, in which affected areas will be excavated and treated and then returned to the sites. The process is expected to be completed in early 1994.

Oil production equipment and structures, which are considered part of the town’s history as an oil town, are expected to be preserved, according to Greg Hoffman, manager of business development of Santa Fe Energy Resources. There are plans to build an oil museum once the project is completed.

One of the oil wells expected to be saved is Oil Well No. 1, which the Brea Historic Committee has identified as one of the first to be dug in 1897 by E.L. Doheny, who leased the property in partnership with Santa Fe Railroad Co.

Senior City Planner Jay Trevino said that a consultant, Dale Beland of Cotton/Beland/Associates, has been hired to make an environmental impact report, which will include public comments.

Trevino said the first phase of the study will be ready in December.

“What we are doing now is letting the community in early on the process. It actually speeds up the process and we create community goodwill because people are better informed,” he said.

Other city redevelopment projects have been plagued with protests, especially from property owners who charged that the city had coerced them to sell their properties through the use of eminent domain.