Orange County Aims to Add to Park System

Orange County moved Tuesday to add a vast swath of oak-filled hills east of Anaheim Hills to its regional park system, ending a decade of wrangling over the prime open space.

The effort to buy the 526-acre Barham Ranch represents one of the last chances to preserve significant acreage for open space as Orange County’s vacant land is built out in the next 20 years.

Acquiring Barham Ranch would connect 477-acre Irvine Regional Park with the smaller Santiago Oaks and Weir Canyon regional parks--providing 1,550 acres overall of unspoiled land.

“This is a big accomplishment,” said Orange activist Shirley Grindle, who fought for the property’s preservation with a group of environmentalists.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday set aside $4.2 million to buy the property, which is owned by the Orange Unified School District. Last week, the district declared the land surplus and will offer it for sale.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer said he is confident the school board and the county can agree on a fair price.

Most of the land is marked by roller-coaster terrain and is covered by plants sheltering two dozen rare and endangered bird species. The area is used by runners and mountain bikers and is accessible by horseback.

The ranch’s purchase, added to 11,000 acres donated this year by the Irvine Co., means “the whole east Orange area has the potential to be perpetual open space,” Spitzer said.

The property has long been coveted for a county park, but attempts to buy it over the years fizzled.

It was originally owned by the Carpenter Irrigation District. In the 1970s, the now-defunct district sold half of the ranch to Orange Unified for $80,000, with an agreement that the property would be used for education purposes.

Spitzer said the county intends to honor that intent by building an environmental-education center to teach schoolchildren about the effects of urban runoff in county watersheds. The county will submit a letter of interest to the district, a required step before sale talks can begin.

In the mid-1990s, developer SunCal Cos. offered $10.4 million to build 600 high-end homes there. Local residents, environmentalists and Spitzer united in opposition and the developer eventually dropped the idea.

In January 2000, the Serrano Water District, which had assumed control of the other half of the ranch, sold its portion to the school district for $2.4 million.

Grindle credited the current school board with acknowledging that the rugged land wasn’t suitable for schools. State law allows districts to own property only if they intend to build schools on it. But the cost to build a road into Barham Ranch and bring utilities to the area made development unfeasible.

In the course of the fight to preserve the land, Grindle discovered a threat to the entire park system: A third of the land didn’t have deed restrictions to keep it as permanent open space. Last year, supervisors added the deed restrictions and barred the sale of any acreage without a public hearing.