Fighting for serenity

A lone bell tolled as dawn washed over the Ramakrishna Monastery in Trabuco Canyon on a recent cool, autumn morning, summoning the monks to their daily meditation, as it has every morning for more than 50 years.

Wrapped in cotton robes, four men padded barefoot into the compound’s white brick shrine to begin an hourlong silent contemplation in a windowless room illuminated by the glow of candles. Outside, a fierce Santa Ana gale whipped through the monastery’s courtyard, chasing leaves and bending trees that seemed accustomed to the assault.

Once a solitary outpost with expansive views of only chaparral-covered hills and deep ravines in this remote region of Orange County’s Santa Ana Mountains, the monastery’s hilltop vista now encompasses cluster after cluster of identical-looking tract homes plunked atop the mountains like ill-fitting hats.

Instead of the plaintive cries of coyotes at night, the monks say they are more likely to hear the sounds of TV shows and slamming doors wafting up to their rustic compound.

Longtime Trabuco Canyon dwellers and developers are well aware of the acute need for more housing in Orange County. The choice of this rustic area for expansion is, however, a matter of great debate.

The expansion also is the focal point of a 23-year battle and current lawsuit filed on behalf of the Ramakrishna monks, who are trying to reverse the county’s approval last month of a 283-home development in the “monks’ backyard,” said attorney Ed Connor, who represents the monastery.

The issue is not just the development’s potential effect on the monastery, Connor said. “This project will eliminate 180 oak trees that are older than county government here. One of the most important wildlife corridors in Orange County will be wiped out.”

For more than 50 years, Trabuco Canyon, known for its equestrian culture and quiet ways, was home to a smattering of hardy souls, as well as the contemplative Ramakrishna monks and, at a neighboring abbey, Roman Catholic priests. It also is the site of O’Neill Regional Park, which is about 2,200 acres.

The canyon, which abuts Cleveland National Forest, was frequented mostly by leather-jacketed bikers, cowboys, upscale professionals and musicians until 1968, when the upscale Coto de Caza development began construction nearby.

In 1950, when the Ramakrishna Monastery was being established in Trabuco Canyon, there were 2,200 homes within a 10-mile radius of the religious compound. Today there are 85,900 homes, a quarter of which were built in the last 10 years, according to La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Services, which tracks such statistics.

“It felt like the Queen Mary docked when the houses were built just below us,” said Swami Tadatmananda, 70, a 38-year resident of the monastery. “With each new development, we get more and more trespassing here.”

A long history

The monastery was constructed in 1942 by Gerald Heard, the British author and a disciple of Vedanta’s Swami Prabhavananda, who consecrated the monastery shrine in 1949. Originally called the Trabuco College of Prayer, Heard established the compound with help from author Aldous Huxley and other friends.

The buildings were designed in the style of an Italian monastery, with oversized bricks for the walls, orange-tiled roofs, a bell tower and heavy beams in the main building. A statue of Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramakrishna’s revered disciple, sits in a wind-swept courtyard with a lily pond in front of it and a sweeping view of the valley behind.

The purpose of the college was to provide a place for prayer and the study of Eastern and Western mysticism. In 1949, Heard deeded the property to the Vedanta Society, which embraces a philosophy from the ancient scriptures of India and is the foundation of Hinduism.

The two monks and three lay brothers who reside there today seek to remove themselves from worldly distractions and desires in order to get closer to God, to “reach a transcendent place,” said William Divine, a lay brother and spokesman for the monastery.

The society, which has temples in Hollywood and Santa Barbara, and a center in San Diego, is supported by donations, book sales and revenues from rental properties, said monk Lal Chand, 33, a former UCLA physicist who now resides at the Trabuco monastery.

Tall, soft-spoken Swami Tadatmananda, known as Tadat, and Asim, 78, a longtime Ramakrishna brother, recalled over a recent breakfast in the monastery’s kitchen the early days in the canyon, when the surrounding land was open and isolated and cattle grazed in the area that is now Rancho Santa Margarita.

There was no San Diego Freeway, food was bought in the city of Orange or at the general store down the road and residents commuted by car for an hour on a small highway to Santa Ana or Anaheim, Tadat said.

“It’s the most beautiful spot in the whole county,” said real estate agent Amy Richards, 62, who was raised in Silverado Canyon and is among those who want to keep development to a minimum. “I wish we could afford to buy up all the land around here and keep it the same.”

Richards and other longtime canyon dwellers know from experience, though, that the area’s charm, coupled with nearby shopping, jobs and toll-road access to the bigger cities in Orange County, will continue to attract developers, who are having greater success with the county in getting approval for projects in the once-secluded region.

Huge development

The newest residential development creating worry among the monks and other canyon residents is Saddleback Meadows, a 230-acre property that straddles a mountain in the heart of Trabuco Canyon. The site is owned by California Quartet of Sacramento.

Although the developers have set aside 70% of the site for open space, the proposed development is between the Ramakrishna monastery and St. Michael’s Abbey, a stone’s throw from both sanctuaries.

Rare and endangered species such as gnatcatchers, fairy shrimp and cactus wrens inhabit the Saddleback wilderness area, which contains vernal ponds, ancient live oaks and sage scrub.

Saddleback Meadows also is the only remaining wildlife corridor connecting thousands of acres of open space.

To build homes on the Saddleback ridgeline, developers will have to remove about 9 million cubic yards of earth for re-compacting, which will disrupt the monastery and the Catholic abbey, according to the two religious orders.

While an expensive and labor-intensive process, grading is a common practice in hilly areas and is effective in preventing landslides, said Jeffrey Knott, assistant professor of geology at Cal State Fullerton. Trabuco Canyon has been the site of landslides and flooding.

But the grading, which will slice off the mountaintop and require the bulldozing and transporting of tons of earth, is in violation of the county’s Trabuco Canyon Specific Plan, opponents say.

The document was adopted in 1991 to establish development standards for the area and prohibits large manufactured slopes. It also ensures that the canyon maintains its scenic, rural atmosphere.

The area approved last month for development has been the subject of a protracted legal battle, dating back more than two decades.

The first plan failed after the landowner went bankrupt. Subsequent plans have been scuttled by years of lawsuits and one attempt by development opponents to buy the land for a park.

In 1984, the county approved plans for 705 mobile homes on the land, and then in 1999, 299 homes. That decision was dismissed by the courts after environmental studies were found to be inadequate.

State and federal wildlife officials are worried that the new development will impede wildlife movement and possibly eliminate the corridor. But the corridor is under the jurisdiction of the county, which approves of the project and believes it can be built with little damage to the wildlife there.

The developers maintain that they have worked diligently to modify the project, to make sure the project has met federal guidelines.

“There are some folks who, understandably, want to see things not change, but we can’t meet their goal,” said Pike Oliver, a spokesman for California Quartet. “I think, overall, that this plan does a good job balancing the needs of men and the needs of nature. That’s what we have to do under the law.”

Connor filed a lawsuit two weeks ago challenging the November approval of Saddleback Meadows. The suit claims that the development is inconsistent with the zoning laws laid out in the area’s specific plan, Connor said.

The Ramakrishna Monastery, which deeded 240 acres of parkland to O’Neill Regional Park, has vowed to take back the land if the development goes through. A condition of the gift was that the monastery not be disturbed by future growth there.

The collision of suburban growth and rural canyon life in eastern Orange County began in the 1970s with the Coto de Caza development but exploded during the great building boom of the 1980s, when most of the housing tracts went up in and around Trabuco Canyon.

Coto de Caza, about three miles south of Trabuco, began with a relatively modest plan of 200 homes and now is a more than 4,000-home development with two golf courses and equestrian trails.

Homes in Coto start at about $600,000 and run as high as $10 million. Until the 241 toll road was built in April 1995, the only way into and out of Coto was by winding along rustic, tree-lined Live Oak Canyon Road, through the heart of Trabuco Canyon. The onetime 45-minute trek to jobs now takes just minutes, said Bruce Thier, a Trabuco Canyon real estate agent, making the area even more attractive to buyers.

Suburban life arrives

Rancho Santa Margarita, which broke ground in 1985 on Trabuco “mesa” land owned by the O’Neill family, put nearly 17,000 homes and shopping and commercial development within miles of the canyon. The project brought suburbia practically to Trabuco Canyon’s doorstep.

“It’s so close that the old cowboys in Trabuco Canyon can throw a rock and hit civilization, but a block away it’s a two-lane country road,” said Bob Phillips, a Rancho Santa Margarita real estate agent and area resident.

Santiago and Dove canyons sprouted smaller developments closer to the monastery and the older Trabuco homes. The Santiago Canyon Estates project, built in the mid-’90s, solidified resistance to development, said Buck Panchal, an Orange County consultant to builders.

“The project looks like a cross between Robinson Ranch, which are standard tract homes, and the canyon homes, with no fences and rolling hills,” Panchal said. “[The builders] tried to soften the look, but canyon folks thought it looked like all the other developments they don’t like.”

The bikers and other locals who hang out at Cook’s Corner, a storied bar and grill with taped-up Naugahyde booths and sawdust floors at the gateway to Trabuco Canyon, are resigned to the changes, which they say have, in some respects, made their rural life a bit easier.

“We have an alcove mentality here,” said Bob Johnson, who lives in Portola Hills, one of the newer developments in the hills adjacent to Trabuco. “We like living away from the city life, but the toll road and El Toro Road let us get to Irvine and Tustin easily, and I don’t mind that.”

Steve Shounia, owner of the Trabuco Canyon General Store, bemoans the traffic that development has brought but is happy for the business.

“It’s peaceful here. Horses go by, dogs, it’s neat,” Shounia said. “The development is good for me, but I don’t want them to cut down trees and flatten hills.”

At the monastery, meanwhile, the tiny population of monks and brothers still performs daily routines of meditation and study. They have vowed to continue their struggle to maintain their way of life.

Asim, echoing the sentiments of the other monks, says they don’t oppose all development in the canyon; they would prefer a scaled-back version that will not have as profound an effect on their sanctuary.

Their attorney is cautiously optimistic about their chances of reversing the Board of Supervisors’ decision.

“We’re still in the fight,” Connor said. “The boat’s rocking, but we have to climb out of the boat and walk across the water. We’ve prevailed before, and we hope we will again.”