Judge Temporarily Halts Work on San Joaquin Tollway : Courts: The order is hailed as ‘a positive first step’ by San Juan Capistrano activists who allege that the highway interchange will pollute the air and devalue their homes.

In the continuing battle over the planned San Joaquin Hills tollway, a Superior Court judge issued an order Tuesday temporarily halting work along the southern end of the road linking it with Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano.

Responding to a recent lawsuit by a San Juan Capistrano community group challenging the tollway interchange, Judge Leonard Goldstein issued the temporary order pending a court hearing June 17.

Save Our San Juan, or SOS, alleges in the suit that San Juan Capistrano and the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency failed to do required environmental studies for the interchange, which includes moving part of Rancho Viejo Road east to make way for the corridor. Community activists claim the interchange would be too close to their homes, polluting their neighborhoods and destroying home values. They are demanding the city and toll road agency do more studies to determine what effects the interchange could have on their neighborhoods.

SOS activists called the judge’s decision Tuesday “a positive first step.”

“We feel the judge’s decision at least gives us some protection that we should be getting from the city,” SOS spokesman Robert P. King said.

“This is a war and the (toll road agency) has won some battles lately and it hurt,” he continued. “We won a battle today and it feels good. But the war will still go on.”

Tollway agency spokesman Mike Stockstill, however, said the temporary delay will not seriously hurt the project, and that some tollway-related work in the San Juan Capistrano area can continue. He added that arguments being used by SOS are similar to those raised in another tollway lawsuit involving a UC Irvine parcel that was rejected last month by a state appellate court.

“We really view this as a frivolous and a last-ditch effort to try and stop the corridor by SOS,” Stockstill said.

San Juan Capistrano officials could not be reached for comment.

The 17.2-mile toll road project would wind from the Corona del Mar Freeway in Newport Beach through Laguna Niguel and merge with the Interstate 5 freeway in San Juan Capistrano near Avery Parkway.

A council majority recently decided not to challenge the planned tollway interchange in San Juan Capistrano in exchange for about $2.5 million in roadway and other improvements from the project builder. The council’s decision also meant the corridor agency could proceed with the interchange construction without having to deal with the city’s building permit process, a move protested by SOS.

The court order temporarily halts construction work on about two miles of the corridor’s southern tip, south of Paseo de Colinas in Laguna Niguel. The order does not prevent the tollway agency from continuing work north of Paseo de Colinas or along Interstate 5 at the planned interchange. The agency can also continue some tollway-related projects south of Paseo de Colinas, including surveying and right-of-way acquisition.