OCTA Wants El Toro Base Land For Transit Center : Conversion: County agency officials unanimously approve plan to seek 96 acres of the air station--scheduled to close by 1999--for development of a facility serving trains, buses and cars.

County transportation officials voted Monday to seek nearly 100 acres at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station for use as a public bus center, train maintenance base and other ground transportation projects.

The Orange County Transportation Authority board voted unanimously to ask the Department of the Navy and the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority to reserve 96 acres of the 4,700-acre military base for OCTA use, authority spokesman John Standiford said.

OCTA officials want to build a transportation facilities center on the 96 acres. It would include a regional bus station; an urban rail maintenance yard; commuter rail and Amtrak maintenance facilities, and parking lots where commuters can leave their cars before hopping on trains and buses.

The cost of the project hasn’t been determined.

According to a staff report, OCTA and three other agencies may work together to obtain 148 acres--starting with the initial 96 acres--of the El Toro base for ground transportation facilities serving buses, trains and cars.

Other agencies--the California Department of Transportation, the Transportation Corridor Agencies and Orange County’s Environmental Management Agency--also have identified several facilities that could be located at El Toro, but they have not yet requested any land at the base. Possible uses include warehouses, equipment shops and laboratories, the report states.

Standiford said that OCTA’s Irvine bus yard on Sand Canyon Avenue would probably be moved to El Toro land if OCTA’s request is approved.

The Irvine bus yard may be bulldozed, Standiford said, if plans go ahead for the Eastern tollway, which would connect the Riverside Freeway to the Santa Ana Freeway.

“The idea is to start the process to alert the federal government that we’re interested in the area,” Standiford said. “We’re not trying to get in the way of the overall plan” for base reuse.

Harriett M. Wieder, a county supervisor and OCTA board member, commended the authority’s staff for leading the effort to get land for public transportation.

“It’s about time we started coordinating,” Wieder said, of the various cities and government agencies that are trying to influence the reuse of El Toro. “We’ve got to stop jockeying around.”

Reuse of the El Toro air station, which the federal government plans to close by 1999, has stirred bitter debate. Supporters of building a commercial airport on the site say the airport would stimulate the local economy, while opponents argue that it would damage the quality of life in surrounding communities.

On Thursday, an initiative to convert the El Toro base to a commercial airport qualified for the November ballot.