Many in Rancho Santa Margarita See Cityhood as Next Logical Step

As pressure built last year to join nine other foothill communities and form one large city, longtime residents here just smiled.

From the day the first homeowners took possession of their piece of Rancho Santa Margarita, residents have eagerly anticipated the day when their community would become a city--by itself.

“What drew me here is the idea that this is a complete town,” said Jack Wynns, a resident of this planned community of 25,000 since 1986. “There is a very strong sense of place here. If we were forced into being part of a so-called supercity, we wouldn’t have that anymore.”

After getting encouragement and direction last month from officials at the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees incorporations, cityhood organizers have begun taking the first steps to fulfill their 10-year-old dream.

Volunteers have begun canvassing businesses and neighborhoods to come up with about $50,000 to pay for LAFCO application fees and a financial analysis of the proposed incorporation.

Brimming with confidence, committee members predict they will have the money and paperwork ready for LAFCO by the end of year.

“It’s the right time,” said Wynns, a member of the Rancho Santa Margarita Cityhood Committee, which claims 140 active members. “All the things we’ve done in the past 10 years as a community have led up to this.”

One of the reasons that the supercity concept failed to sway Rancho Santa Margarita residents is that the community was designed from the start to achieve self-sufficiency.

In contrast to the fast-paced commuting lifestyle of Southern California, residential construction was balanced with commercial and retail development so that residents could work, play and shop in the pastoral outskirts of South County.

It’s a concept that has succeeded only partly as corporations move in and out of Rancho Santa Margarita. But the Santa Margarita Co.’s vision of a residential village has been embraced by many homeowners.

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Community centers with pools and meeting rooms were erected throughout Rancho Santa Margarita to give neighbors a place to meet. People bump into each other at Lake Rancho Santa Margarita or Town Center, a blending of shops, homes, restaurants, walking trails and parks.

The Santa Margarita Co. “was wise enough to give us places to mingle with our neighbors,” said Carol Gamble, vice president of the cityhood group. “I personally have to have a place where you feel that if you need help from your neighbors, you have that.”

Richard Reese, former senior vice president of master planning with the Santa Margarita Co., said the company always intended that Rancho Santa Margarita would stand on its own two feet someday.

“That was always an underlying principle of our master planning here,” Reese said. “The most important thing that has happened is the emergence of natural leadership into a group committed to self-governance.”

The Santa Margarita Co. turned over operations of the planned community to an investment partner last year and is now involved in developing the 8,000-home Ladera project east of San Juan Capistrano.

If successful, Rancho Santa Margarita would become Orange County’s 32nd city. However, some residents think that incorporation would be a mistake.

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“I think we’re too small to support ourselves as a city,” said Michele Lamb, former chairwoman of the Foothill Cityhood Committee, which disbanded in July after failing to inspire enough interest in the proposed city comprised of 10 local communities. “There’s not enough tax base in Rancho.”

But Gamble said a preliminary study shows that an incorporated Rancho Santa Margarita would break even or actually wind up with a small surplus in the first year.

“You have to have interest from the community and the financial ability” to incorporate, she said. “We have both. It truly is the evolution of this planned community to be a city by itself.”