Planning Board Approves Campus for South County : Education: Japan-based Soka University hopes to accept its first students by 1999 at a 100-acre Aliso Viejo facility whose library will focus on the Pacific Rim.

Calling it an important new asset for Orange County, authorities on Tuesday approved plans by Soka University to open a 100-acre campus in Aliso Viejo.

The approval by the county Planning Commission clears the way for construction to begin later this year on the first full-campus private university in South County.

The campus could open as early as 1999 to about 300 undergraduate and graduate students, with an eventual enrollment of about 2,500.

“This is going to be super for the citizens of the County of Orange,” said Planning Commissioner Tom Moody. “It’s one of the most respected universities in the world.”

The campus will be southwest of the San Joaquin Hills tollway in Aliso Viejo, an unincorporated community near Mission Viejo. It will be surrounded on three sides by the Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park.

Over time, the Japan-based liberal arts university plans to build a library focusing on the Pacific Rim. The university will also build a performing arts center and art gallery, in addition to playing fields and classroom buildings.

“We intend to make this campus a resource that the community, especially Aliso Viejo, will enjoy and take advantage of,” Soka spokesman Jeff Ourvan said.

More than half of the property will remain open space, said county landscape planning manager John Buzas. The property had been zoned for 395 homes, which would have allowed for far less open space, Buzas said.

The campus is expected to generate several hundred million dollars in revenue to Orange County firms and residents over the next two decades from students and more than 400 new employees purchasing goods and services, Ourvan said.

For the past four years, Soka University has tried to expand its 300-student campus near Calabasas but the plan has been opposed by local residents and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. The conservancy, which wants the land for a public park, has won the right to seize 245 of the campus’s 660 acres. Later this year, a jury will decide how much the school should be paid for the property. The conservancy is prepared to pay about $20 million.

Only two people questioned the Orange County plan during the commission meeting Tuesday, raising concerns about lighting and traffic problems, Buzas said.

Buzas said the university plans to install lighting that will be contained on the campus and said traffic will be minimized by the fact that most students will live on campus.

The only remaining hurdle is completion of the land sale by the Mission Viejo Co., Ourvan said. The sale was contingent on the Planning Commission’s approval of the project, he said.