Growth May Edge Out Fields

The 93 acres of lima bean fields are one of the last reminders of Orange County’s agricultural past. Soon, they may give way to its future: shops and office space.

The Costa Mesa City Council later this month will take up the fate of Home Ranch, the last undeveloped parcel in the city owned by the Segerstrom family, responsible for developing much of the area’s skyline.

The property is bounded by Sunflower Avenue, the San Diego Freeway, Fairview Road and Harbor Boulevard.

“You see the bean fields still. For me, it reminds me of when I was a girl when we had a bean field at the end of the street,” said Sandy Genis, a former Costa Mesa mayor who has long opposed development of the Home Ranch. “No one expected this to remain agricultural indefinitely. But it does show the direction we are taking. We are what they call an edge city . . . suburbs that have become commercial and job centers.”

In the latest proposal, developer C.J. Segerstrom & Sons envisions a 300,000-square-foot Ikea store that would be the chain’s West Coast flagship. Another well-known company, not publicly identified, is expected to occupy office space. There will be only limited additional retail space--a dry cleaners, a travel agency--designed to serve the offices.

The City Council will conduct the first of two public hearings on the proposal Oct. 15. The Planning Commission has approved it.

Don Collins, Ikea project manager, said that if the council approves the plan by the end of this year, the store could be open by Christmas 2002. The store, which will have 411 employees, will replace the one in Tustin.

Ikea will buy part of the Segerstrom property for an amount neither party would disclose.

Though city officials and residents objected and sued over previous proposals for high-rise buildings on the property, the latest plan received more support because it was less dense and has no high-rises.

The property was dubbed Home Ranch because it was where the Segerstrom family settled in 1915; they continued to hold family meetings in the original ranch house until the 1960s. That building--at Fairview Road and South Coast Drive--now is used as Segerstrom office space. It will not be affected by the development.

The family--one of the region’s best-known developers of high-end retail projects--built South Coast Plaza, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel, South Coast Repertory and several office buildings.

Planning Commission Vice Chairman Bruce Garlich had opposed part of the plan because he wanted to change zoning to reduce the project’s traffic trips from 20,000 to 15,000.

Nonetheless, Garlich supports the project as a whole.

“All of us [on the Planning Commission] were pretty much for the project. What they have proposed is appropriate. The previous proposals were too big. This isn’t,” he said.

“I’m very pleased that the [Planning] Commission voted so strongly in support of this project,” said Segerstrom spokesman Paul Freeman. “It reflects how hard we have worked to respond to all the issues raised by the community.”

The Segerstroms have tried to develop the land since the 1980s, but residents and elected officials have objected to all plans submitted. One offered in 1999 was withdrawn before it even came before the Planning Commission.

To sweeten the pot this time, Segerstrom offered incentives to the city. The developer will provide community benefits, including a $2-million endowment for three high schools. Segerstrom will pay $8.46 million in traffic improvements, including the widening of the Fairview Road bridge over the San Diego Freeway, $3.5 million for a Susan Street offramp from the freeway, a $500,000 contribution toward the construction of a nearby firehouse and 30,000 square feet of land to build it on.

Even so, neighborhood activist Robin Lefler opposes the plan.

“It’s the traffic generation that’s scary. I think there’s no amount of benefit or money that really makes up for the traffic and air quality impacts on the neighborhood,” she said.

“We’re losing our neighborhood character of a less crowded, less urban city. This makes it a much more congested area.”

Planning Commission Chairwoman Katrina Foley said she believes the new plan, with its reduced density and traffic relief measures, has been carefully reviewed.

Mayor Libby Cowan said the Planning Commission’s votes, most of which were unanimous, “make a powerful statement.”

The project “lends itself to a debate or discussion,” she added. But “the opposition has not gotten the momentum from the community. . . . There are many concerns, but from my reading so far, they have been mitigated.”

Even so, what the council will do is anyone’s guess, Foley said.

Unlike many city councils, Costa Mesa’s “leaves people hanging on the edges of their seats. You can’t predict anything,” she said.