Put El Toro Plans in a Holding Pattern

Orange County supervisors have a big decision coming up this week on the reuse of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The correct stand for them to take is that there should not be an international airport at the site. We hasten to say that the site may be appropriate for some kind of commercial air facility of a far more modest scale--not as a replacement for John Wayne Airport, which should remain the county’s main air facility but in addition to it, and which could be complemented by other uses of the 4,700 acres.

Accordingly, the supervisors should back off the fast track being laid for them by the well-heeled and relentless agitators for the international airport proposal. They must insist on taking more time to get the environmental impact report right. They should move toward a posture that would allow for more serious consideration of other options.

Background

One of the ironies of Southern California land-use history is that for all the celebrated planning that has gone on in the environs of the base, few could have imagined even as recently as 1990 that the community would be discussing what would become of the base itself. All that changed in 1993, when federal officials decided to close the facility at the end of the century. Since that announcement was made, the future of this vast tract has been contested fiercely.

Orange County has had two ballot measures on the question of whether there should be an airport at the site, and proponents have won both of them. One, Measure A, passed, and zoned the site generically for an airport. The other, Measure S, failed, and virtually would have prohibited one.

The Times argued against both measures by citing our disdain for ballot-box planning. In the process, we basically have said the following: “We do not believe that there must be an airport at El Toro; but we would like to reserve the option to have one that would be carefully limited and regulated. We have serious reservations about the big international facility being pushed through by developers.”

Now, we have an environmental impact report that portrays the international airport as the best reuse for the site. The week before last, the Planning Commission, the Orange County Airport Commission and the El Toro Citizens Advisory Commission made decisions that advanced the commercial airport idea. This week, the supervisors will choose between three alternatives, an international passenger-cargo airport, a cargo-general aviation airport, or a non-aviation, mixed-use option.

Why No Big Airport

* The case for additional international airport capacity in Southern California should not drive the debate about what happens at this particular site. As we noted in our March 17 editorial, the siting of a new international facility, if one is to be built, should be a decision made regionally, not simply because an airfield has become available at El Toro. Today, in the sprawl of the Los Angeles Basin, there probably is going to be concern with the location or expansion of any international facility. The region, not just Orange County, needs to take a long hard look at all alternative sites, especially those that are not in heavily populated areas.

* All of the land around the base was planned in recent decades with the understanding that this territory never would be anything but a Marine base, and there are legitimate questions of good faith to be reckoned with as they pertain to city master planning and to the expectations of those who moved into the new suburbs. There are some proposals that people simply must live with for the greater good, but this project is different because of its magnitude.

To impose an international airport, with round-the-clock flights, would invite outright rebellion in a host of surrounding communities. Forcing in such an airport would ensure lingering and lasting hostility; it would divide the county on geographical lines, and perhaps cause an outright split north and south. This issue is so divisive as to threaten the future of Orange County as a single unified political entity.

* Proponents have won two fairly close and narrow ballot measures in recent years. However, it is clear that the people who would most be affected are overwhelmingly opposed to a big airport.

The Times’ recent polling seems to confirm what has been apparent for some time: South County is strongly against; there is a hard-core but very small group of people within the business, development and county government axis who are passionately for. The latter group has accelerated this issue in the hopes of getting the county to sign off as quickly as possible.

Outside of those groups, the solid support for a big airport at El Toro exists only in Newport Beach, which makes little attempt to mask its true agenda, the closure of John Wayne Airport. Support for the airport does exist elsewhere, but is soft.

* In view of this diverse array of interests, it seems apparent that a big airport is so invasive for those who would live with it that they should be considered a weighted voice. They must be heard especially in answer to the question before the federal government: Namely, what is the community’s reuse plan for the base?

That is, if this is a community plan, it cannot be one that is imposed on that part of the population which demonstrably must bear the immediate burden of its impact. Nor is this an issue framed adequately by extrapolating simple countywide majority votes on narrowly framed ballot measures that dealt with aspects of El Toro as an airfield.

We cannot conclude from these votes that somehow there is a mandate for an international airport, and that a bare majority should be thought to carry the day on a proposal of such magnitude. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

* It is conceivable that under some circumstances the economic benefit to the county of an international airport might be so compelling as to make the case for going forward. But the county’s own environmental impact report suggests that while the economic benefits of the three proposed options might be realized on a different time frame, they are about the same.

So one way of looking at the county political elite’s stubborn preference for the international airport is to say that it has decided to take the most incendiary of the available options, even though it promises to deliver a roughly equivalent benefit. This understandably fuels suspicion that the pro-airport crowd isn’t putting all its cards on the table in arguing for the airport over other potential uses.

Also, the county’s rapid recovery from bankruptcy weakens the argument that this airport is necessary as an economic shot in the arm. By the way, we are disappointed with the depth of discussion to date about non-aviation uses. Those who want no airport at all at the site are fuzzy about what there would be instead. The airport proponents have provided so little consideration to non-aviation uses that they appear to be straw men presented to be knocked down in favor of the preferred alternative.

* Safety and planning issues remain big question marks. County planners recently suggested that there should be no westerly takeoffs over Irvine, one of the cities most affected. But to accomplish this, takeoffs would have to be in a direction that the airline pilots have made clear they strongly oppose for safety reasons. Faced with these non sequiturs, supporters offer only the prospect that these are wrinkles to be worked out in the planning to come after the basic deal is sewed up.

The reuse plan and draft environmental impact report prompted more than 1,500 questions from the anti-airport group Project ’99. This is an illustration that there are many good questions having to do with pollution, traffic and safety.

It was telling that on the eve of the Planning Commission vote waving through the environmental impact report, the Irvine Co., a major land-use developer in the region, also was critical. The Irvine Co. has been coy about the airport proposal, but to have a developer question an environmental impact report is like having a fox tell a chicken coop architect that his structural design is flawed.

Overall, the concern that a big airport would be an irreversible step in the direction of making Orange County even more like the urbanized places that many people came here to get a change from is a serious consideration.

Conclusion and What Next

To this point, we have addressed most of our comment to the big airport idea. But we also believe that South County residents will have to accept the possibility that some kind of cargo and general aviation facility at El Toro probably can be done in a way that is sensible and safe, and that will not compromise the environment, or disrupt lifestyles, or detract from property values, and that it can be something people could accommodate. After all, El Toro is an airport now. It may be too much for these folks to expect that destiny will wave a magic wand and remove an irritating component from their environment that they have known all along was there.

But the international airport and the “Let’s Move John Wayne to El Toro” movement are different matters. The former is too big, too divisive, too uncertain in cost benefit, and most clearly at this juncture, too obviously the pet project of a handful of developers and their collaborators in county government. The latter is just a ploy to get jetliners out of the skies over Newport Beach.

The supervisors can demonstrate some real leadership on this issue. They can ask for more time if necessary, go back to the drawing board if need be, and insist on one or more new detailed proposals that truly will reflect the best interests of the community, and that will be important blueprints for its future.