In Orange County, Transfer Of Land Comes With Many Strings Attached

The Orange County Board of Supervisors has authorized OC Parks to negotiate with The Irvine Company and The Nature Conservancy to transfer 20,000 acres of open space from The Irvine Company to the County. This would increase the amount of County parkland in Orange County by half, from about 40,000 acres to 60,000. The land covers some of the most rugged canyons in Orange County, including Weir, Fremont, and Limestone.

This news should be cause for celebration for Orange County residents-getting the land out from under one of the most avaricious developers and into the hands of the public. But, as with so many things involving The Irvine Company and the County, the devil is in the details, and the details aren't pretty.

Most of the land to be transferred is already protected from development, but the proposed deal would reduce the level of protection. In 2001, 11,000 acres were designated as permanent open space, to be protected in perpetuity with conservation easements that are managed by The Nature Conservancy. Another 8,000 acres were set aside as mitigation for development rights elsewhere. The Irvine Company is now asking The Nature Conservancy to give up the conservation easements so the land can be transferred to the County with less restrictive deed restrictions. In addition, The Nature Conservancy is being asked to turn over the $4.6 million endowment it holds to monitor the conservation easements to the County.

Which brings us to the second issue other than the $4.6 million endowment, The Irvine Company is not offering any additional money to cover the County's costs of managing the land. A number of state agencies, such as the State Lands Commission and the Department of Parks and Recreation, will not accept land donations without a non-wasting endowment to pay for the costs of managing the land. The County claims they can afford this addition, even though they recently identified $30 million of improvements needed on existing acreage, and in the past, the County has expressed reluctance to take on new land because of maintenance costs.

A third issue is that while the County is seeking a Resource Management Plan for the property, the County and everyone else working on this agreement have turned a blind eye to The Irvine Company's plans to build 1200 homes in the middle of the parkland. No one seems to be considering the added costs to manage the land if 1200 families have access from an internal perimeter. Ideally, the County should be asking The Irvine Company to include in the land transfer the 950 acres east of Irvine Lake that are currently slated for development. The proposed parkland has been designated as both a National and California National Landmark, a designation that will be as hollow as the donut hole of development within it if this housing project proceeds. It's time to make the parkland whole, not holey.

The County would like to complete negotiations for the land transfer by the end of March 2010.

To learn more about the land transfer, visit the website of the Friends of Harbors, Beaches and Parks at fhbp.org/projects/land-transfer.html. Send an email to your County Supervisor - find the email address at www.ocgov.com and ask him/her to keep the conservation easements, seek a non-wasting endowment, and keep the parkland whole. In addition, please ask The Nature Conservancy to hold onto the conservation easements - write to:

Mark Sanderson,
Dir., Conservation Programs
The Nature Conservancy
South Coast and Deserts
1400 Quail Street, Suite 130
Newport Beach, CA 92660

Mike Sweeney
Executive Director
The Nature Conservancy
California Program
201 Mission Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105-1832

Mark Tercek
President and CEO
The Nature Conservancy
4245 North Fairfax Drive
Suite 100
Arlington, VA 22203-1606