In a Turnabout, Parkland Carved From Development

Incongruous as it may seem, a new wave of development in Orange County is helping to create an elaborate network of hiking trails and wilderness parks, with thousands of acres added in the past few years alone.

“It’s phenomenal,” said Jim Meyer, executive director of a nonprofit organization called Trails for All, which coordinates trail building and maintenance by volunteers. “We have more trails here than almost anyplace and people are largely unaware of it. Nobody would expect it here because it’s largely an urban area.”

Since 1990, six wilderness parks have been created in the county, and a huge parcel of land was added to another, adding up to about 10,000 acres of new parkland in less than a decade.

“The bulk of this acreage came from developers,” said Tim Miller, manager of the county’s harbors, beaches and parks division. “The county did not go out and buy these lands. We couldn’t have afforded it.”

Although three county parks--Whiting Ranch, Irvine Regional and Carbon Canyon--had been closed during the week’s wildfires, Miller said all were scheduled to be open this weekend.

But the wilderness parks, so-called because they have only rudimentary facilities such as portable toilets, gravel parking lots and dirt trails, don’t expect the huge Labor Day crowds that beaches and urban parks are likely to draw.

Miller said trail use has climbed steadily over the years but isn’t subject to the seasonal fluctuations of other parks. If the weather cooperates, trails in wilderness parks could be a peaceful refuge for lovers of the outdoors.

“Holidays have nothing to do with the wilderness parks. Attendance is pretty consistent,” Miller said. “I hike every weekend in one of our parks. I go out early in the morning, and sometimes I won’t see another soul on the trail for hours.”

The development of the county’s wilderness parks and trails has a long history.

Since 1965, there has been a master plan for riding and hiking trails, which envisions an elaborate network connecting mountains to ocean and north to south. But for years, as the north and central parts of the county grew, the plan was largely ignored. The few trails that were developed were generally urban paths, such as the asphalt lane that runs along the concrete Santa Ana River channel.

Then during the 1980s real estate boom, in part due to pressure from environmentalists and outdoor enthusiasts, the county began requiring large developers to provide open space and trails. But it wasn’t until the early 1990s, when the county established a citizens advisory committee for trails and created the position of trails coordinator, that park and trail development really started moving forward, said Meyer.

One early example: the 3,400-acre Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park, which opened in 1990 on land donated to the county by the Mission Viejo company in exchange for the go-ahead to build Aliso Viejo.

“The story is the same with all these parks, principally in the South and Central County,” Miller said. “Growth has resulted in the expansion of the regional recreation system.”

Jeff Dickman, the county’s trails coordinator, tried to ensure that all new trails built and donated by developers worked with the emerging countywide system.

“Our goal is to give as many people as possible the opportunity to bike or hike a mile or two from their house to a freeway of trails that glue all the parks together,” Dickman said. “When we’re done, theoretically you could run all the way from Fullerton to Camp Pendleton.”

With about 175 miles of county trail on the ground now, Dickman said the county is about halfway done with its master plan and is looking to developers for key links in the system. In November, the county will open one such link--a four-mile stretch along the new Ladera housing development that connects Holy Jim Canyon to the San Juan Capistrano trail system.

“I think we’re way ahead of the curve here,” said Meyer of Trails for All, who is an avid mountain bicyclist. “One reason is the developers are all for it. They want to market the community with an emphasis on the proximity to trails and open space.”

However, Dave Perlman, chair of the South Orange County Sierra Club group, said many of the new developer-donated parks hardly qualify as wilderness and that his group is pushing the county to preserve larger tracts of land.

“The [view] isn’t pure nature, with the exception of a few of the larger ones. Even in Aliso [and Wood Canyons], you’re never without a view of housing. That’s the caveat. It’s a mitigation for development, but it’s not a pure gain because they’re small and you can’t really get away from civilization.”

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Price for Development: Wilderness

Since 1990, the county has greatly expanded its system of wilderness parks and trails, largely by requiring large housing developers to donate land to the public. In this decade alone, six wilderness parks have been created and another received a large parcel of land through such deals. A master plan envisions eventually linking all the county’s parks and wilderness area through a system of trails.

1990: Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park

3,350.089 acres

1991: Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park

1,376.875 acres

1993: Peters Canyon Regional Park

357.23 acres

1993: Laguna Coast Wilderness Park

3,000 acres

1994: Thomas F. Riley Wilderness Park

475.19 acres

1995: O’Neill Regional Park

3,073.45 acres

1996: Talbert Nature Preserve

210.8 acres

Source: Orange County Public Facilities and Resources Department