Lake Forest’s Land Swap Is a Trail Blazer

Almost every weekend, Lisa Evans saddles up her quarter horse, Amos, at the Serrano Creek Ranch Equestrian Center in Lake Forest and goes for a ride along the tree-cloaked riverbed.

It’s a short ride, though. Very short. The trail starts at Serrano Creek Park off Lake Forest Drive and draws to an abrupt end just a few blocks away.

“You get to Bake [Parkway] and the trail ends,” Evans said. “So I’ll usually go down the street a little way and take a fire road back to the center.”

But now, a land swap between Lake Forest and a developer will allow the city to preserve, as a nature park, a 4.6-acre ribbon of rugged land shaded with eucalyptus and oak trees along Serrano Creek. The deal would create a new corridor to Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, one of the county’s largest and most unspoiled stretches of parkland.

Once that’s accomplished--and it could be within the next six months--the park will provide a nearly uninterrupted trail connection from Serrano Creek Park to Whiting Ranch, providing hikers and riders a meandering trek along the creek, which stretches about three-quarters of the city’s length.

The swap will let the city preserve an aging grove of about 25 heritage oak trees, spare the creek-side land from development and create a thin, rustic beltway through the city’s industrial area off Dimension Drive and Bake Parkway.

The land swap took shape when developers told city officials they planned to build an office complex along the creek on land zoned for industrial use. The city, which owned an adjacent piece of property, offered to exchange land with the developer, Gale & Wentworth. The firm had already developed office buildings for Gateway and Matsushita nearby.

“We are extremely protective of our creek,” said Kathy Graham, Lake Forest’s community development director. “So when the project came forward, we worked with the developer to swap their property for a piece of city property next door that had no creek frontage.”

And, since the city’s parcel was larger, the developer paid Lake Forest $200,000. The money will be used to develop the park, which the city considers “an important environmental resource,” Graham said. Some of the oaks along the river are estimated to be a century old.

“You can’t buy trees this old anywhere,” Graham said.

It was a deal that drew support from the Serrano Creek Conservancy, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, which have volunteered to help with clearing brush, planting and upkeep along the river, Graham said.

Most of Serrano Creek winds through land belonging to the county and Lake Forest. A number of creeks flow through South County, but Serrano Creek is among the most scenic, said Gary Beelor, vice president of the Serrano Creek Conservancy.

“There’s still room for habitat along there for people to enjoy,” Beelor said. “And this will be a nice, long trail system and a nice open space area with wildlife.”

The city will put in a parking lot off Dimension Drive, a staircase leading into the park from the nearby Gateway offices, picnic tables and a bridge across the creek.

“Gateway has 1,300 employees, and we wanted to create a nice walking environment where people can go on their lunch hour and enjoy nature,” Graham said. “So now they’ll have a nice two-hour loop along the creek.”

But it won’t be just Gateway workers enjoying the park. Like horseback rider Evans, Lake Forest resident Lisa Burson is looking forward to using the trail as a link from Serrano Creek Park to Whiting Ranch, which reaches deep into the nearby hills.

“My husband mountain bikes up there all the time,” said Burson, who often hooks a trailer to her bike so she can pull her two daughters along the short but scenic Serrano Creek Park trail. “It would be fantastic if the trails went all the way through. These trails here now don’t go anywhere.”

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Natural Connection

In a swap with a developer, Lake Forest gets a 4.6-acre stretch of creek-front land off Dimension Drive for a nature park that will save old oaks and offer a trail almost completely linking Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park to the northeast and Serrano Creek Park to the southwest. The land has been targeted for an office complex, but the city traded it for a nearby parcel to spare it from development. Planned features:

Source: RJM Design Group Inc.

Graphics reporting by TINA BORGATTA / Los Angeles Times