Laguna Coast Wilderness Plan Unveiled : Recreation: Called preliminary and evolving, the design for the 12,000 acres has been in the works for more than a year. The biggest challenge is that San Joaquin Hills toll road will bisect it.

After more than a year of planning, the county has unveiled a preliminary design for Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, an expanse of hillsides, canyons and meadows destined to become Orange County’s largest park.

While its shape is still evolving, planners say a final blueprint for the 12,000 acres bounded by Laguna Beach, Irvine and Newport Beach should be complete by year’s end.

In the meantime, they are grappling with controversial issues: Where should the parking lots be? Who should be allowed to camp where? And which trails should be reserved for select groups, including hikers and horseback riders?

And by far the knottiest problem: How will a “wilderness park” coexist harmoniously with the planned San Joaquin Hills toll road, which is expected to slice through it?

Renowned landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, who has spent “hundreds of hours” studying the parkland’s craggy hillsides and exploring its deep canyons, calls the property, “a very, very, very significant piece of land.”

“It really is a key location, particularly with all the development going on around it,” said Halprin, who is leading the county’s design team. “It’s a vital kind of open space.”

Also helping to shape the park’s future are: RJM Design Group, a Mission Viejo consulting firm hired by the county to prepare the plans, Orange County Harbors Beaches and Parks employees and about 120 local residents, including environmentalists, equestrians and mountain bicyclists, who have participated at planning workshops for the past five months.

“It’s been a collaborative effort from the beginning,” said Robert Mueting, RJM Design Group owner. “It’s been a very, very good process.”

Workshop participants spent full days on the land, absorbing its ambience, imagining how the land might be used and then making sketches of their visions. Participants praise Halprin’s method of designing a park by harnessing the creativity of those who will use it.

“He’s a world-class guy that we in Orange County have working with us; that’s pretty amazing,” said Kathie Matsuyama, senior landscape architect for the county. “To be able to work with someone who’s a master at those skills is just a phenomenal opportunity.”

And creating a park in wilderness can be tricky business, Matsuyama said.

“It’s our job to make sure it fits well into the land,” she said. “It’s so much harder than it sounds, especially when you have controversy or complexity in the project.”

In designing this park, planners have labored to strike a balance between divergent viewpoints. At opposite extremes were those who wanted the park open to all and those who wanted it trod only by naturalists.

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When the tentative plan was unveiled before a group of about 75 workshop participants last week, some people balked at the proposed restrictions while others complained that “any kind of use was bad,” said Denton Turner, county Harbors Beaches and Parks design manager.

“There was one fellow who said, basically, ‘I don’t want anybody in the park but me,’ ” Turner said.

The plan suggested six sites for dirt or gravel parking lots, a location for a ranger station west of Laguna Canyon Road and various entry points for equestrians and mountain bikers.

The proposal also showed a web of trails, some so steep that only people on horses are likely to use them and others winding along delicate canyon floors where only hikers may be allowed, and a possible site for overnight camping.

“We have consensus on well over 50% of all the items in the park, probably more than 70-75%,” Turner said. “We’re certainly more than halfway there.”

After workshop participants reach an agreement, the final plan must survive a series of public hearings and approval of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

The park is a patchwork of chunks of land owned by the state, county, Irvine Co. and the cities of Irvine and Laguna Beach. Some of the property already is dedicated parkland, such as Crystal Cove State Park, while other parcels will be dedicated in coming years. For long-term planning purposes, the 12,000 acres are being viewed as a single parcel.

The park currently is open only for guided tours in selected areas, but a year from now the public may have access to larger sections.

By far the most daunting hurdle for park planners, one they have yet to deal with, involves reducing the impact of the proposed San Joaquin Hills corridor, a 17-mile motor route that would split the park as it links Newport Beach with San Juan Capistrano.

“The corridor is a real challenge,” Turner said. “On (the inland) side of the park, you’re going to be aware of it virtually everywhere you go.”

Halprin was less gentle.

“This is a major, major park in an area that desperately needs it on the edge of the coast of California,” he said. “To have a road going through it is the wrong thing to do.”

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Planners say they don’t know yet how visitors will get from the south to the north side of the park, since the roadway will divide them. They say two- and four-legged animals may have to share a “wildlife corridor” under the road.

Of particular concern is a spot at the park’s center where a web of trails connect. Once the corridor is built, Turner said, it will be extremely difficult for people using those trails to reach the northern side of the park.

Park planners asked the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which is building the tollway, to tunnel the road through a hillside at that point so hikers could walk over the hill, but the agency rejected the idea.

“If we don’t have something like that, we will have two parks, not one,” Turner said.

Agency spokeswoman Lisa Telles said the tunnel proposal was rejected largely because of the additional cost. She said an over crossing might be installed at a later date if it doesn’t involve a redesign of the toll road.

And Telles said no one should be surprised by the reality of the tollway, since it has been planned for more than 15 years.

“We understand it creates a challenge,” she said.