In flagrant disregard of the public interest, the Orange County planning department and a project applicant coordinated to bypass the established public review process for Saddleback Meadows, a proposed housing development on 222 undeveloped acres along El Toro Road near Cook’s Corner in Trabuco Canyon, handing the Board of Supervisors a controversy and a slew of upset residents. The situation could have been avoided.
The public review process, required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and county ordinance, involves preparing and circulating environmental impact reports (EIRs) that inform the public and government decision makers about a project’s potential impacts on the environment, and identifying ways of avoiding or reducing those impacts before giving final government approval.
But in 2004, county planners and the applicant, California Quartet, LP, chose a different process for the project after undertaking secretive settlement negotiations to satisfy a neighbor who had challenged in court the applicant’s previously proposed 299-unit project and its 2002 EIR.
The results of those private negotiations did not become public until 19 years later, in October of 2023, when a county planner appeared before the Foothill/Trabuco Specific Plan Review Board seeking that body’s blessing for a conditional use permit establishing setbacks, building heights, and other minor details of an otherwise final 181-unit project.
The packed audience at that Review Board meeting was told that the new project—including an area plan, tentative tract map, and two uncirculated EIR addenda—had already been “administratively approved” by unelected planning department officials in Santa Ana without the customary public hearings. Unlike a normal EIR, an EIR addendum may update an original EIR for minor changes in the project or its surrounding conditions, and does not require circulation or public review, if no new information or substantial changes in circumstances have occurred that relate to the project’s impacts. But that’s not the case here—and the public should have had a say.
Saddleback Meadows lies within a designated “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone” as identified by the State Fire Marshal and adopted by Orange County ordinance, but not disclosed in the 2002 EIR or subsequent addenda. Neighbors from the adjoining Hidden Ridge community were alarmed to see that, in the event of a wildfire, Saddleback Meadows would share their only evacuation route out to El Toro Road—Valley Vista Way—potentially compounding the dangerous traffic gridlock they had experienced in earlier fires and other emergencies. Except for the use permit and the expected approval of the final tract map by county supervisors, the project that the audience had just heard about for the first time was considered a “done deal,” the county planner said, advising the audience to contact county supervisors.
But when residents showed up in Santa Ana last June and urged county supervisors to address their concerns before approving the final tract map, a majority of supervisors claimed they were powerless to help, that their hands were legally tied, and that map approval at this stage was “ministerial.” Only second district supervisor Vicente Sarmiento abstained from the vote, citing concern for the environmental impacts and the lack of a robust public process. After approving the final map, supervisors urged the residents to take their concerns to the county planning commission when it considered the conditional use permit—the final approval needed.
But in January, concerned residents received a similar response after testifying before the planning commission. Commissioners said that they were interested only in the use permit details, not fire safety, emergency evacuation, changed circumstances, or even that critical details of the project’s water supply are unknown. The commission approved the use permit and made a written finding that the project “will not result in conditions or circumstances contrary to the public health and safety and the general welfare.”
The Saddleback Canyons Conservancy and Rural Canyons Conservation Fund, with support from residents and concerned citizens, have appealed the planning commission’s decision to their elected representatives on the county board of supervisors, with a public hearing set for 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 5. They want an updated EIR that addresses their safety concerns over wildfires, emergency evacuation, and the many changes in the local environment that have occurred in the area since the 2002 EIR, including several new housing developments, traffic congestion, wildfire frequency fueled by climate change, and impacts to wildlife, particularly mountain lions, which are now a listed threatened species under the California Endangered Species Act.
The public wants a chance to review and comment on an updated EIR considering all impacts for a complete project, including a new million-gallon reservoir with accompanying infrastructure that must be built to deliver water to the project, but whose offsite location and other details have not been finalized or disseminated to the public. And the public wants decisions made at a public hearing—not in a backroom in Santa Ana.
County supervisors can legally approve this appeal of the Saddleback Meadows use permit because it is a “discretionary” action. They should do so because the project will, in fact, “result in conditions or circumstances contrary to the public health and safety and general welfare.” Even if the county were a party to the secret negotiations, it could not have committed itself to issue the use permit in violation of state law.
They can deny the use permit entirely, impose conditions like preparation of an updated and publicly circulated EIR, or send the project back to the planning department for an above-board process.
Approving the appeal will make a strong statement that our elected officials are interested in upholding the integrity of the established planning process and the lawful role of Orange County citizens in that process, and it will discourage future attempts at subverting it through expediency and secrecy, no matter how long a project has been in the works.
Ray Chandos is a retired college instructor and the secretary treasurer of the Rural Canyons Conservation Fund.
Gloria Sefton is a retired attorney, co-founder of the Saddleback Canyons Conservancy, and board member of Friends of Harbors, Beaches and Parks.
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