System at Fault in Meadows Project

The Saddleback Meadows project, a proposal for a housing tract in the hills of Trabuco Canyon, is an excellent eye-opener for a view of the Orange County political process (“Frustrated Board Spikes Trabuco Project,” Oct. 23).

The 318-unit tract would have been devastating to surrounding monasteries and involved soil conditions that were unstable to the point of experts warning of a disaster waiting to happen.

Despite these facts, the county’s Environmental Management Agency director of planning, Tom Mathews, strongly promoted the proposal for over two years. It cost taxpayers and the landowner dearly before a majority of supervisors refused to approve it. Chairman Roger Stanton called it the worst project he’d ever seen.

Opponents of the project spent years fighting the proposal and were finally forced to hire soil experts, detectives, a lobbyist and attorneys to contend with the landowner’s army of professionals. The owner, Aradi Ltd., bought the land very cheaply because of the inherent problems but stood to make a huge profit at the expense of impacted neighbors.

As a concerned taxpayer, I was shocked to witness through my involvement with this project that the only plan of the taxpayer-funded planning department seems to be to push for development, even if it’s exploitative. These unelected, otherwise faceless bureaucrats will stand to gain even further empowerment when term limits make elected officials more transient.

There is no accountability to taxpayers as to whether a development is economically feasible. The initial fees paid by the developers serve to fuel the bureaucracy but taxpayers are left to pick up the expense of maintaining large non-revenue-producing residential projects. These costs manifest themselves in the form of reduced school services, larger classes, Mello-Roos assessments, traffic problems, lack of funds for mass-transit options and so many other basic quality of life issues.

The system is designed to favor big business over smaller developers or landowners who are less able to afford pricey “insider” lobbyists or don’t have the same ability to influence the choice of Planning Commission members and elected officials. Government takes its cut by implementing fees before allowing exploitative projects to begin. Taxpayers are stuck holding the bag.

The landslide-ridden Saddleback Meadows project could have been a hazardous taxpayer nightmare had it not been for the media exposure.

If it hadn’t been for the impacted monasteries we wouldn’t have had a prayer.

MARIE WALSH

Trabuco Canyon