El Toro Planners Add Park Proposal

Planners acknowledged this week that they would use diverted property taxes from a redeveloped El Toro Marine base to build a park adjoining an international airport proposed for the site.

Orange County’s two anti-airport supervisors immediately criticized the idea of creating a redevelopment zone for the 4,700-acre base.

“This has always been represented that [the airport] wouldn’t be built at taxpayer expense,” Supervisor Todd Spitzer said. “They’re speaking out of both sides of their mouths.”

The tax money hasn’t been considered in economic projections for the airport and wouldn’t be needed to build the airport itself, El Toro planning chief Bryan Speegle said. But creating a redevelopment zone would generate an estimated $988 million over 50 years to pay for needs other than building the airport, he said.

“It would accelerate the improvements to the park considerably,” Speegle said Thursday. The park has long been part of the county’s plan; if the tax diversion is approved, the money generated by redevelopment would be funneled, in part, to pay for the park.

For example, after 10 years, the base would bring in $12 million annually for the park in property taxes from hotels and other businesses at the airport, according to preliminary estimates. That amount would jump to $22 million a year after 20 years.

Diverted Funds Would Include Aircraft Taxes

Creating a redevelopment zone would divert most new taxes paid at the base into a special fund, separate from general county coffers. The base now is owned by the federal government, which pays no property taxes; that means all of the new tax money could be diverted. That diversion also would include hefty taxes paid on aircraft operated by the airlines.

The proposal for a redevelopment zone at El Toro became public earlier this week. Supervisors approved studying the idea Monday. The county Planning Commission, which usually makes recommendations before the board votes, recommended in favor of the study Wednesday.

Airport foes said the rushed manner in which the $100,000 study was approved is suspicious because neither board members nor the public had ample time to analyze the idea. Planners countered that the study is intended to answer questions about the implications of creating the zone.

Talk of a redevelopment zone raises another issue, airport foes said: Airport supporters have criticized the so-called Great Park plan for the base, saying it would have to be built with new taxes. Park supporters hope to place an initiative on the March ballot that would replace airport zoning at El Toro with that of a large urban park, including museums, a university, sports fields and some housing.

County officials said they could use redevelopment money to pay for such base necessities as bringing deteriorated and substandard buildings up to code, rehabilitating dilapidated utility systems and demolishing 1,188 housing units before airport construction starts.

The redevelopment area would include everything except the golf course, agricultural fields, a 1,000-acre nature preserve that will stay in the hands of the federal government, and a 440-acre parcel at the southwestern edge within the city of Irvine.

Speegle said the county can designate the zone only for areas considered blighted under state law. If the zone is created, he said, the county would benefit from other types of taxes generated from the base, chiefly sales taxes.