Grading of Nature Park Reserve Revives Old Feud

It wasn’t an unusual sight: land flattened by bulldozers in ever-urbanizing Orange County.

But federal officials and environmentalists are complaining that county officials, by allowing developers to grade up to two acres in Santiago Oaks Regional Park, violated the landmark 1996 agreement creating a 37,000-acre nature reserve system.

County officials say that a grading permit apparently was issued by mistake and that the problem will be resolved. But critics say the encroachment could threaten the nature-reserve agreement, considered a national model of cooperation between developers and conservationists.

The spirit of cooperation that launched the reserve system has chilled in the three years since the agreement was forged, with conservationists questioning whether developers and county officials have the commitment necessary to maintain it.

But “this is the first out-and-out infringement of the reserve and breach of the agreement,” said Dan Silver of the environmental group Endangered Habitats League. “In this case, it looks like the county was trying to accommodate the developers. If that’s the way it’s going to be, it’s not much of a model program.”

In a letter to the county delivered last week, officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game said they discovered grading in an area of Santiago Oaks Regional Park on land that the county once proposed be given to developer SunCal Cos. of Anaheim in exchange for other land.

SunCal plans to use the land as a wildfire buffer zone for its massive Serrano Heights subdivision, an 1,800-unit development in Orange, and undertook the grading before a visit by state and federal officials in December, when they discovered the grading.

The county had issued a grading permit for the work even though the land swap and a later land sale proposal never went through. As a result, the land was still

part of the 37,000-acre nature reserve system known as the Natural Communities Conservation Planning program, or NCCP, once hailed by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt as a model for the country.

By issuing the permit, the county may have violated the agreement that established the NCCP, according to the letter from state and federal regulators. The agreement prohibits the county from making land-use decisions that result in a net loss of nature reserve acreage.

“There absolutely should not have been a grading permit issued by the county,” said preservationist Elisabeth Brown, who sits on the board of directors of the nonprofit Nature Reserve of Orange County, which oversees the land set aside.

“I would say this is a violation of our implementing agreement, and I find this very troubling,” Brown said, referring to the agreement establishing the nature reserve system, California’s first. She said the board overseeing the reserve system should have been better informed of the negotiations for swaps and sales.

Begun in 1991 with the intent of striking a balance between development and conservation interests, the statewide NCCP program was supported by developers, environmentalists and landowners in its ambitious aim of setting aside land to protect habitats for wildlife while streamlining the process by which developers obtain permits.

By agreeing to set aside large expanses as habitats for plants and animals, developers may build on other land without undertaking the intricate process of complying with complex endangered-species regulations.

However, the building permits would be frozen if repeated violations are found by state and federal resources agencies.

“All of those permits issued to all of those developers and landowners can be pulled, and that would stop the development that is taking place as part of the NCCP,” Brown warned. She said the Santiago Oaks encroachment alone is, however, unlikely to provoke such drastic action.

Tim Neely, a county official who runs the reserve program as executive director of the Nature Reserve of Orange County, said the permits were part of a complicated land swap and sale deal. Neely also said the parkland in question, a narrow finger of property remote from the main portion of Santiago Oaks Regional Park, is not valuable as reserve territory.

“It’s all resolvable, once we have the chance to get in touch with them,” Neely said. “This is a piece of property of marginal value to the reserve.”

He said the county had considered swapping the parcel, about 20 acres, for 80 acres east of the main portion of Santiago Oaks Regional Park, but the proposed deal was not approved by county real estate officials. Next, the county considered selling the land to SunCal and adding other property to the NCCP reserve system to offset the loss of 20 acres of habitat.

Neely said county supervisors authorized such a sale in December but said it would be contingent on terms establishing the reserve system being met. Neely said the grading permit was somehow issued assuming the sale would be completed, an assumption that proved false.

In December, conservationists and state and federal agencies complained about the county’s approval of the 299-unit Saddleback Meadows subdivision in Trabuco Canyon. They contend the development would disrupt a crucial wildlife corridor between the 37,000-acre reserve system in central Orange County with future reserves in southern Orange County.