Tustin’s Balky El Toro Jr.

For seven years, opposing sides have salivated over the prospect of acquiring the closed El Toro Marine base’s 4,700 acres, some of the last major acreage in Orange County yet to be developed.

Nearly lost in that jockeying has been the fate of the former Tustin Marine helicopter base, which, at a third the size of El Toro, contains 1,600 acres of prime land in the county’s core.

Now, as squabbling over a proposed international airport at El Toro has thrown redevelopment there into limbo, a similar fate has befallen the Tustin base.

Tustin city officials say the Navy hasn’t approved their plans for the acreage because the city wants the land free of charge. Until last year, the city intended to pay for areas of the base it hoped to sell for private development. But a bill passed by Congress last year allows military bases to be turned over free of charge. The hitch is that the planned development must bring significant public and economic benefits.

Navy officials strenuously deny that money from the city, or lack of it, is the issue. They say they are studying--not stonewalling--the city’s proposal for such uses as business, a golf course and residential neighborhoods. Many public and private agencies from outside the city would also use the base.

“We’re not being Pollyanna about this; we understand the real world,” Tustin City Manager William A. Huston said last week of the delays. “But it’s frustrating because this is a good plan.”

Jeanne Light, spokeswoman for the Navy’s Southwest division in San Diego, said Navy officials are on schedule to approve a hand-over of the property in late summer.

One sticking point, according to sources involved in the negotiations, has been plans to build 3,300 homes on the base. Navy officials are questioning whether the homes truly represent an economic benefit for the region. The city argues that the homes qualify because they can house workers from the business park envisioned at the base’s southwest corner.

Moreover, Huston said, the city needs money from selling the land to developers to cover about $200 million for demolition and other costs to build roads and upgrade public services.

But Tustin is stalled from doing anything at the base until the Navy finishes an environmental review and signs documents turning over the property. So far, the only agreement signed by the Navy is an interim lease with the Orange County Rescue Mission to transform base barracks into a 192-bed transitional living center.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Tustin was supposed to be the easy base, the one that didn’t carry the baggage of a proposed airport. Both the Tustin and El Toro bases closed in July 1999, and it was expected that city officials would have the deed to the land long before El Toro’s use was decided.

Instead, the city’s application to take over responsibility for about 250 acres of public areas--including park and school sites--sits pending final action by the Navy. The city has no agreement to provide caretaker services at the base, which would allow city crews to repair broken water lines and mend cracking concrete. A master lease that would allow the city to take over the base until the land is conveyed also has not been signed.

“The base is falling apart, it’s deteriorating,” an exasperated Huston said. “It just means more public funds are going to have to be spent to get things back in good condition.”

While Tustin officials wait, complications have developed closer to home.

Last week, the Santa Ana Unified School District said it will try to force the city to turn over 75 acres for a charter high school in the southwest corner of the base. That portion of the base overlaps the school district’s boundaries.

The desired school site lies in the area that Tustin officials hope to turn into a lucrative business park along Red Hill Avenue and Barranca Parkway. City officials refused to give the land to the school district when first asked, in 1996, and have dug in their heels against the latest request.

“The base is already overburdened by numerous public benefit requests,” Huston said in a recent memo about why Santa Ana was denied space.

Among the agencies that scored a piece of the base are five organizations that serve the homeless, the Tustin and Irvine school districts, a community college district, the Sheriff’s Department and county offices for social services, parks and animal control.

The government agencies are slated to divide up 500 acres in a plan originally carved out by Tustin officials four years ago. Among public and private-nonprofit uses: three elementary schools, a Tustin Unified high school, a junior college, the transitional living center and 50 houses for use by homeless families, a regional park and several smaller city parks, a 60-bed shelter for abused and orphaned children, an animal shelter and a sheriff’s training center.

At least one of the base’s two most visible features--enormous wooden hangars that once housed blimps--would be preserved under the city’s plan. That north hangar lies within 84 acres to be turned over to the county for a regional park and other uses. The county intends to hold large public events, such as car shows, there, and plans already have been approved for Universal Studios to begin filming portions of a feature titled “Pearl Harbor,” using the hangar as a sound stage.

The fate of the south hangar is iffy, thanks in part to the estimated $22 million it would cost to repair it.

The city plans to ask businesses if they want to buy the south hangar, which is on the national list of historic sites. If no one comes forward, the state’s historical commission has agreed that the hangar can be demolished, Huston said.

Among those working over the past year to keep both hangars preserved is state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), who stepped in on behalf of the Motion Picture Assn. of America to allow the behemoth structures to be used for movie making.

“Once the filming industry gets a foothold here, they’ll stay here,” Dunn said. “There’s no reason we can’t have both [hangars] working.”

City officials are anxious to get anything moving at the base, Huston said recently at City Hall, surrounded by years-old color-coded maps and aerial photographs. Within the month, the city will pick a developer for the first project: a housing tract at the base’s northeast corner that drew 22 bidders.

“We’re not sitting and twiddling our thumbs,” Huston said.

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Recycling a Closed Base

Frustrated by the pace of the property’s transfer, Tustin leaders continue to push their plans to redevelop the former Marine base within the city limits. A look at the city’s plan, which also turns space over to many municipalities, districts and agencies:

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Recommended Recipient Purpose Acreage/units Recommended So. O.C. Comm. Col. Dist. Education 99.7 Tustin Unif. Sch. Dist. 3 schools 60.0 County of Orange Sheriff’s training 10.0 County of Orange Neglected children’s home 4.0 City of Tustin Day care 4.3 City of Tustin Parks/recreation 24.1 County of Orange Park, animal control 64.5 Irvine Unif. Sch. Dist. K-8 school 20.0 City of Irvine Transportation, park 8.0 City of Tustin Roads 157.6 City of Tustin Drainage facility 1.8 County of Orange Public facilities, parks 26.7 O.C. Rescue Mission Homeless housing 5.1 Salvation Army Homeless housing 24 family units Orange Coast Inter- faith Shelter Homeless housing 6 family units DOVE Homeless housing 6 family units Families Forward Homeless housing 14 family units

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