Site of Old Oil Town May Be Tapped for New Development : Housing: While some support energy company’s request to build master-planned community, critics say proposal is not sound.

Louise Bleininger was just 3 years old when her parents, like scores of others, traveled from the Midwest to Orange County to work and settle among the towering wooden oil derricks that rose like beacons above the turn-of-the-century boom town of Olinda.

That settlement faded by the 1950s. Gone now are the church, the school, the dance hall, the general store and the rugged oil men who drilled hundreds of wells, transforming the hills above Brea into what was then Orange County’s top petroleum-producing region.

Bleininger, now 91 and still living in Brea with her husband of 67 years, grows thoughtful when asked about a proposal to re-establish a master-planned community of more than 850 homes, a school and parks on the hillsides that were once her back yard. The plan, which has drawn strong opposition from nearby residents, goes before the City Council for possible approval tonight.

“I’d like to see this plan go through,” Bleininger said. “Something’s got to happen eventually, and this looks like a good one. Besides, the people who live there will keep it up better. It’s just one of those things--progress, I guess they call it.”

Opponents call it something else: an outrage. If the City Council allows the development, it would first have to amend the city’s General Plan, which was designed to keep the hillsides rural by allowing only low-density housing. If the council changes that, critics say, it would set a precedent and permit other oil companies to build high-density housing in the surrounding hills, which are now largely vacant.

“They are asking that the General Plan be chucked for more dense and profitable development,” said Diane Taylor, a resident. “Historically in Orange County, too much of this has been allowed to go on.” The proposal, by Texas-based Santa Fe Energy Resources, would put 867 mostly single-family homes, a school, a park, a historical center, senior housing and large tracts of open space on 284 acres of unincorporated land north of Carbon Canyon Road and east of Valencia Avenue. The site would be annexed by the city of Brea, but under the city’s current General Plan, fewer than 500 homes could be built.

The largest housing proposal here in about 20 years, the project also has drawn fire from residents who note that active oil wells and storage tanks would be near homes and the elementary school. And then there’s the nearby landfill and earthquake fault.

“The school is 1,000 feet from a fault, 1,500 feet from a tank farm that stores crude oil and 1,200 feet from operating oil wells,” said Nancy Wright, a city planning commissioner who was the lone dissenter in a 4-1 vote to approve the project in May. “There are a lot of loose ends and a lot of questions that still need to be answered.”

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In the past month, the City Council has held several study sessions on the project, where consultants were peppered with questions about safety and traffic concerns. An environmental impact report found that 7,000 additional car trips will be made each day as a result of the development. But project consultants and city staff reports have supported Santa Fe’s contention that possible health, safety and traffic problems can be mitigated.

“The county has installed and continues to install a very intricate network of methane gas recovery wells in the area, primarily to prevent any emissions from escaping,” said John McLaughlin, Santa Fe’s environmental safety and compliance manager. “And they are required to completely cover the landfill every day.”

In addition, McLaughlin said, Santa Fe will widen often-congested Carbon Canyon Road. Some of the area’s residents will be senior citizens, who generally do not commute to jobs or schools during peak traffic times, he said.

Any oil-soaked soil will be cleaned up, McLaughlin said, and homes will be built with a sealed barrier in the floor to prevent anything, even moisture, from coming up through the ground, he said.

“There are a number of oil fields in the Los Angeles area that have been developed over the years,” he said. Most wells at the Olinda site have been removed, but Santa Fe would continue to operate about 50 active wells on land surrounding the development, McLaughlin said.

The proposal enjoys strong support from the Brea Historical Society because Santa Fe has promised to set aside 10 acres for a historic center. The Brea Chamber of Commerce also cites a need for more housing and supports a part of the plan that calls for a village for faculty from Cal State Fullerton and other schools.

The historic park would include the few structures left from the old Olinda village: an administrative office, a “jack room” that provided the power for surrounding wells, a concrete bunker that may have been used as an occasional makeshift jail cell and the first oil well, drilled in 1897.

“It is so great to have something saved from our past instead of tearing it down,” said Jane O’Brien, the historical society’s president. “You just can’t find equipment [and structures] like that.”

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The first well, shallow at 500 feet when compared to the later wells of 8,000 feet and more, took about five years to drill. The same well would take about a week to drill today, said Jim Love, an area supervisor for Santa Fe and one of three men who now work at the site.

That well, like the bustling community that surrounded it, is now silent. The remaining Olindans, such as the Bleiningers, are among the few links to the area’s rich past.

Her family, Bleininger noted, lived a few doors down from the Johnsons, whose son Walter went on to become one of the winningest pitchers in major-league baseball history. Bleininger’s husband, Andrew, drove trucks for the company and played for the town’s baseball team in later years.

Most in the village built modest homes on the oil company’s property. Utilities were free, except electricity, and rent on the land was based on the number of light bulbs in a household--$3 for each bulb.

“People just can’t believe that Olinda was like that, all the things that went on and the people that lived there,” Bleininger said. “I guess it’s just one of those things. Time goes on, and you have to live with it.”