Where Will Orange County Land in 2020?

By JEFF GOTTLIEB and SHELBY GRAD

May 26, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

It was a battle of epic proportions. The lawyers brought their billable hours, the politicians their rhetoric and the protesters their placards. And when the smoke cleared, the antiairport forces uncorked the champagne. After years of bitter fighting, there would be no international airport at the defunct El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Now what?

If an airport isn’t built at El Toro, something sometime will be built there. And if Orange County doesn’t get a second airport, new challenges will emerge that no one is quite sure how to address:

* South County leaders who oppose an airport are pushing their own El Toro plan that calls for a “mini-city” complete with museums, a football stadium, expansive central park, university and performing arts complex. They say such an assortment of attractions would bring Orange County a cultural identity. But real estate experts and urban planners say key elements of the Millennium Plan are unrealistic, and some of the projects--such as the stadium--might require taxpayer subsidies.

* Many believe that Orange County’s economy is diversified enough to stay strong regardless of what happens at El Toro, but some experts believe the area will lose out on international trade and commerce if it does not increase air capacity.

* Without an El Toro airport, officials expect intense pressure to expand John Wayne Airport. Yet growth opportunities there are limited because of that airport’s small size and proximity to homes. El Toro foes argue that airport capacity in Orange County doesn’t need to grow because airports in surrounding counties are planning huge expansions that will meet the demand for service.

* Orange County residents can expect more headaches to catch flights. Freeway congestion is expected to significantly worsen by 2020, causing longer drives for travelers and for firms trying to move goods by air, although there is talk of building high-speed rail links to airports, which could give travelers an alternative to the freeways.

Experts said this kind of traffic congestion could seriously deter high-tech businesses from moving into Orange County--firms that need to move products through the airport quickly for shipping.

“As the freeways begin to clog up, proximity to airports is going to have greater and greater value, particularly to air cargo and international airports,” said Steve Erie, a professor at UC San Diego.

The Millennium Plan: Popular, but Feasible?

If the county’s efforts for an airport eventually fall apart, the most likely alternative will be a detailed “mini-metropolis” designed by a group of South County cities that opposes an airport.

The plan centerpiece is a 360-acre central park with botanical gardens, nearly 500 acres for homes, a 76-acre stadium and about 1,300 acres for a business and technology center that would include a university campus.

The county’s airport plan uses half the military base for aviation purposes and the other half for commercial developments including shopping centers, hotels, light-industrial plants and a modest amount of open space. The proposal endorsed by the Board of Supervisors calls for an airport that would serve 25 million passengers a year by 2020--roughly three times the size of John Wayne.

The nonairport plan was developed after South County officials polled residents about what they would like to see at the base. Supporters say it comes far closer to matching the public’s tastes than the airport proposal.

A Times Orange County Poll conducted this month found that the Millennium Plan was significantly more popular than any of the four airport alternatives being considered by the county.

The alternate proposal is backed most strongly in South County, where residents fear the noise and pollution that would result from major jet traffic over their communities each day.

Having no airport at El Toro would be a major relief for those living closest, who for decades have endured the roar of military jets. It could even result is higher property values.

In subsequent interviews with those who took part in the Times poll, respondents said they liked the nonaviation plan in part because it reserved far more land for open space and parkland than the airport proposal. The development would include 733 acres of the base for parks and set aside 995 acres for a nature preserve. The main park--near the existing El Toro runways--would be modeled after New York’s Central Park or San Diego’s Balboa Park and would include lakes, trails, sculptures and monuments.

Because of its popularity, the Millennium Plan would also likely encounter fewer political and legal obstacles.

Yet experts said some of most popular attractions of the plan--including the museums, arts center, stadium and university--are highly speculative and will prove difficult to bring to fruition.

“It’s like motherhood,” said Jerry Mandel, president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa and a former vice chancellor at UC Irvine. “We’d love to have those things around us, but let’s be realistic.”

County arts administrators were surprised they hadn’t been consulted about the plan, and most knew nothing about it. “Nobody has seriously tested those ideas in a serious way with the arts community,” said Bonnie Brittain Hall, executive director of Arts Orange County, a countywide arts community fund-raising group.

Where Would the Money Come From?

The problem is money. Even if those institutions are given land, they need to raise enormous amounts of money to build programs and hire staff.

“To start a new museum from scratch in this day and age is financially impossible,” said Peter C. Keller, president of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana.

Others said the only way to start a museum is if a wealthy art collector donated a collection along with a bundle of cash.

Selma Holo, director of museum studies at the University of Southern California, said museums typically start with a specific need, such as to express an ethnic identity.

“I very strongly believe it’s not wise to say, ‘I want to build a museum.’ I think there has to be a plan,” she said. “More than anything, there has to be a compelling reason to have this thing, or you’re not going to get the audience.”

Mandel said there is no need for an El Toro arts center when the one he heads is just 10 minutes away by freeway. Besides, he said, the cost is prohibitive. Even though the land for the Performing Arts Center was donated, $77 million still had to be raised.

Those familiar with higher education needs in the area say that while a university could place a professional or research program on the land, a full-sized campus, whether public or private, would be a longshot.

Some experts don’t see a need for a college because of the proximity of UC Irvine. UC Riverside is about 40 miles away and has plenty of room to grow. Cal States Fullerton and Long Beach are also nearby. New Cal State campuses are planned for Merced and Camarillo.

“It would be a rather steep road to climb to get a campus placement on the El Toro site,” said Charles Ratliff, deputy director of the California Post-Secondary Education Commission, which advises the state Legislature on higher education issues.

Stanford University professor Roger Noll, an expert in the economics of professional sports, laughed when told of the idea to build a $250-million football stadium at no cost to taxpayers.

South County leaders plan to finance a stadium using personal seat licenses, luxury boxes, naming rights and corporate sponsorships. While Noll agreed that a stadium could be financed that way, football teams expect a cut of those revenues.

“That’s the whole point of building the stadium, from the teams’ point of view, to get access to those revenue sources,” Noll said.

If one community won’t spend taxpayer money, he said, another will.

You can’t build a football field that won’t cost taxpayers anything because there is too much competition from other cities offering incredible deals, Noll said.

Millennium Plan proponents note that the Los Angeles area is without a football team and pointed out that NFL officials toured the base area earlier this month. The league said it is considering several stadium sites, including Inglewood, Carson, downtown Los Angeles and the Coliseum area near USC.

While the nonairport plan includes more parks and less intense development, it would generate slightly more traffic than an airport. It would add 324,000 daily car trips to an already congested freeway system that currently handles 300,000 to 400,000 vehicles per day.

Experts who have studied the conversion of military bases around the country said there is precedent for both an airport and for a commercial-type development such as the Millennium Plan.

A Defense Department study of military bases closed between 1988 and 1996 found that industrial parks or manufacturing plants had been established at 34 bases, colleges or technical schools at four bases, other educational facilities at five bases, and airports at 15.

Most air bases have been turned into some type of airport, mainly because the landing strips provide a ready-made resource and because of the high cost of removing tons of concrete runways.

Still, given El Toro’s prime location and the intense division among county residents, all bets are off.

“If you have the potential to develop anything and are not limited by air activity, the world is the basis,” said Josh Kirschenbaum, defense conversion coordinator at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at UC Berkeley.

The Impact on John Wayne Airport

If an airport isn’t built at El Toro, officials are likely to consider other ways to increase air capacity in Orange County, but options are limited.

Expanding John Wayne Airport would be the most logical alternative. Yet any attempts will bring strong resistance from people living in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. It’s no coincidence that the El Toro airport picks up much of its support from people living next to John Wayne.

About 7.7 million passengers each year fly in and out of John Wayne. The airport sits on about 500 acres--tiny compared with El Toro’s 4,700 acres.

Under the 1985 settlement of a lawsuit brought by Newport Beach residents concerned with jet noise, the county capped the airport at 8.5 million passengers per year. The agreement expires in 2005.

A county report released in April said John Wayne could double its capacity within its current boundaries. Such a plan would require extensive upgrades to terminals, runways, roads, parking lots and other facilities, yet would not come close to meeting the county’s demand for air service in 2020, according to the study.

John Wayne’s main runway would have to be extended from 5,700 feet to 6,800 feet, and service in the category of general aviation--mostly small private planes--would be halted. John Wayne is the largest general-aviation airport in the country.

Under this scenario, the airport could handle intercontinental flights and substantially more cargo. No intercontinental flights operate out of John Wayne, and only about two all-cargo flights a day leave that airport.

One of the biggest questions is how doubling capacity at John Wayne would affect nearby residents in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana Heights, who already complain about noise. The county has spent more than $1 million on noise-abatement programs in Santa Ana Heights, including the insulation of about 125 homes.

Another option is an even larger expansion so that John Wayne could handle 25 million passengers by 2020. Such a project would bring international passenger service to Orange County as well as significant cargo service.

It would come at a huge price. A county report said tripling the size of John Wayne would require the acquisition of hundreds of acres between the existing property line and the 73 Freeway, including a new 8,000-foot runway over the freeway. Officials said the freeway could be tunneled underground.

The county report does not estimate the cost of such an undertaking, nor whether the massive land acquisition is financially doable.

Without building at El Toro or expanding John Wayne, Orange County would handle far less air traffic than other metropolitan counties in the state.

City officials want to increase the capacity of Los Angeles International Airport by 40% so that it handles 94 million passengers per year by 2020. A growing Ontario International Airport is expected to accommodate 15 million passengers a year by 2020.

At least 20 million people are expected to use San Jose International by then, and Oakland International Airport plans to triple its cargo shipments.

El Toro airport opponents said Orange County can prosper while using adjacent airports such as LAX, Ontario and the fledging cargo facility at March Air Force Base in San Bernardino County.

They point out that the county has one of the strongest economies in the nation even though more than half of all local travelers--and cargo--use airports outside the area.

Yet freeway access to those airports will only get worse.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments projects that by 2020 an afternoon rush-hour commute from Irvine to LAX on the San Diego Freeway will take twice as long as it does now. Cars will average less than 25 mph during most of the drive and less than 16 mph on some stretches.

Traffic up the Orange Freeway to Ontario International Airport will be even more stop than go, with speeds from 10 to 16 mph, according to SCAG. Motorists using the 5 Freeway to get into Los Angeles County will average afternoon speeds of less than 16 mph.

South County leaders hold out hope that Orange County will eventually be connected to other regional airports with high-speed rail systems. SCAG has studied the idea of a rail system connecting local airports and found the price to be $6 billion--the cost of building four El Toro airports.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

If John Wayne Went International

If the El Toro airport isn’t built, there will probably be efforts to expand John Wayne Airport. The county has studied the possibility of tripling the airport’s capacity by 2020.

1: Acquisition of hundreds of acres between the existing airport property line and the Costa Mesa Freeway.

2: The project would also extend the runway over the Corona del Mar Freeway from 5,700 feet to 8,000 feet. Officials said the freeway would be tunneled underground.

3: More property would have to be purchased south of the Corona del Mar Freeway....

4: ....and north of the San Diego Freeway.

5: The current terminal and parking areas would also have to be expanded.

Source: Orange County Aviation Associates

Current Flights at John Wayne

A total of 274 commercial and commuter flights come and go at John Wayne Airport from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day.

a.m.:

7:00: 10.2%

At the peak hour, aircraft arrive or depart every 2 minutes, 8 seconds

8:00: 6.9%

9:00: 4.7%

10:00: 7.3%