Environmental Focus
by Craig Reem

Irvine Ranch Gift - The Irvine Co. sets aside another 11,000 acres of open space.

A gift of 11,000 acres of open space - bigger than the island of Manhattan - was donated by The Irvine Co. last month, mostly in the undeveloped canyons and hillsides of the Santa Ana Mountains north of the city of Irvine and east of Orange.

The gift means that more than 50 percent of the company's 93,000 acres - the former ranching concern owns about one-sixth of Orange County - will be forever open space, greenbelts and parks. A total now of 50,000 acres of open and parkland space is probably the nation's largest land preserve within a highly urbanized area.

Orange County is one of the nation's largest counties with nearly 3 million residents and the open space on the Irvine Ranch totals some 78 square miles. It's roughly equivalent to the combined land areas of the cities of Irvine, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

"I don't know of anywhere where you could have this amount of combination of naturalness in a strongly urban concentrated area," explains Ray Watson, the company's first planner when hired in 1960 and the visionary for the master-planned city of Irvine.

Yet, it will take a year or more to determine how much of the newest gift will be something viewed from afar or open to the public. A significant amount of the property could end up off-limits to preserve rare plant life and wildlife terrain and corridors.

Company Chairman Donald Bren was saluted in a media briefing held a few hours before Bren hosted more than 200 guests - environmental organizations and local and regional government officials - in Newport Beach to make his announcement.

"It's a planning process," says Watson. "Donald Bren is as much a planner as a developer. You reach a point in planning: How does it all connect together? He just said, 'Let's figure out what the whole thing will be,' and he made the commitment."

Of the 50,000 acres now comprising open space and parkland, much of it is enjoyed today by outdoor enthusiasts from Crystal Cove State Park and Newport Harbor's Back Bay to the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary and Irvine Regional Park to Irvine Lake off Santiago Canyon Road. Irvine Regional Park was the ranch's first public gift, created on 160 acres in 1897.

A key piece of the new, 11,000-acre gift is among the smallest parcels but most symbolic to Laguna Beach residents. Some 173 acres in Laguna Canyon, the last piece of property that preservationists had for years been trying to buy from the company, was part of the package. The price of the land along northern Laguna Canyon Road was nearly12 years ago tagged at more than $30 million.

"This is a very emotional moment," says Michael Pinto, founder and president of the Laguna Canyon Foundation, who held up his speaking papers along with a handkerchief. "None of us ever dreamt that this moment would come."

Speaking for many who embrace the county's dwindling open space, Pinto recalled his move from Los Angeles to Laguna Beach in 1978, and how the canyon was his "decompression chamber."

"What does open space mean to us? (It's a place where) all of a sudden everything disappears but the birds and the rustle of the wind through the trees."

Pinto helped lead an effort to protect the coastal canyon: 12 years ago, the company agreed to sell five parcels for $78 million that otherwise would be developed. Some $45 million was raised to buy four of the parcels, leaving this last bit that Pinto said was particularly important because it held the most development rights. A bunch of homes would ruin the canyon, he says.

"It worried us," he recounts. "How are we going to come up with $30 million? Nobody ever imagined that The Irvine Co. would come to us and say, 'It's yours, and we ask nothing in return.' It is truly beyond belief."

The Nature Conservancy will manage most of the newly gifted land in a just-signed agreement with the company that extends its 10-year ongoing stewardship another decade. Across that time, company officials say the conservancy-managed land will be deeded to local communities, nonprofit groups and the county as agreements are reached on its use. Yet, stresses company spokesman Larry Thomas, none of the land can ever be developed.

Thomas, group senior vice president/public affairs, adds, "(Bren) really felt, as part of a legacy, that this company could well be known for what was not developed here as for the communities."

Company officials acknowledged the many battles and ballot-box initiatives that Irvine Ranch communities have used to protect themselves from development. And Bren, in comments to his 200 guests, says as much: "Tonight, we celebrate a collective accomplishment. In my view, this is an unparalleled community achievement."

The land now creates the possibility for residents to hike from Weir Canyon at the Riverside County line near the 91 Freeway to Crystal Cove State Park. While trails will need to be created or improved and land opened for crossing, one of the most promising treks could be across much of the 78 square miles now deeded open space - from Weir Canyon and connecting east to the Cleveland National Forest, cutting through newly gifted Fremont Canyon and Baker Canyon, linking up with Limestone and Hicks Canyon. A crucial crossing would be across the closed El Toro air base, but promises from both pro- and anti-airport factions could make that available.

To determine access, and what will be open for what kind of public use, could take 12 to 18 months, says Graham Chisholm, the Nature Conservancy's executive director for California. Chisholm's Orange County spokeswoman, Trish Smith, says the work now begins to see what's available. "You look at the existing trails and existing linkages where it is appropriate to hike and bike and mountain cycle."

Existing truck trails from ranching days and those areas serving as firefighting roads will provide a blueprint, Smith says.

Watson remembers the ranching days. When he was hired in 1960, the original Irvine Master Plan called for 10,400 acres, or about 11 percent of the ranch, be set aside. "In those days, we weren't even talking about wilderness area. We were talking about developing the whole ranch. And those were a combination of greenbelts, parks, the kinds of things you'd put together in an urban community as it grows.

"We've learned, and society has changed." OCM