Throughout the long and tiresome debate over the future of the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the Register and U.S. Congressman Chris Cox have argued that the best outcome for the 4,700-acre property would be to sell it off to the highest bidder and thus let the market decide its highest and best use.
In the same way, much of Orange County has been developed by private developers, creating attractive new communities and commercial centers from large tracts of open land. There are zoning issues, for sure, but there's no reason, we have argued, that El Toro could not face the same future. Repeatedly, supporters of a commercial airport at El Toro and opponents of the airport argued that our "pie in the sky" libertarian philosophy was blinding us to reality.
The land must be a county-planned airport or the latest plan (or county-planned mixed-use development, park, whatever) that anti-airport forces were selling to county voters. We can't help but feel a bit vindicated, after reading the headline in Thursday's newspaper: "Navy may sell El Toro." As Peter Larsen's article explained, "Navy officials warned backers of a park at El Toro on Wednesday to quickly pick a workable plan or the Navy will auction the base to the highest bidder."
Furthermore, despite promises from park backers, the Navy may not transfer the land to the county for free. Base closing law allowed free transfer for economic uses, but not necessarily for park uses. Selling the land is looking better all the time. One can never be sure what will happen in this crazy ongoing battle over the El Toro site.
We urged a no vote on W because the park plan seemed unbuildable without large infusions of tax dollars - a point agreed to by many airport opponents who nonetheless voted for W out of legitimate concerns about airport impacts. But it's certainly possible that, in taking the airport option largely off the table, W's passage could lead to the end we had long wanted - the parceling out and sale of base land to private parties.
We couldn't be happier if that turns out to be true, given that the marketplace is the best way for a free society to determine land uses. Of course, now that land is zoned for a Great Park, only limited market uses could be established without a zoning change. Not many developers would buy even the non-polluted portions of the property unless the plan allows more flexibility in what can be built there.
Because W was largely a battle over the airport, what's needed now is a debate over the proper non-aviation uses of the 4,700 acres. Perhaps a new initiative can be devised that would allow a number of uses, so that if the Navy does sell the land, there would be a large number of interested developers eager to build commercially viable alternatives.
Or, according to published reports, Irvine could annex the area, which would let developers out of the W straitjacket. The debate over any new initiative probably would pit hard-core park backers against others who believe in a mixed-use project, with the market driving the decisions.
Without the fear of an airport in the background, residents would be in a better position to look at alternatives in a less emotionally charged environment. Then, tax and cost implications could get the fair hearing they deserve. Remember, this parcel of land is nearly six times the size of Central Park in New York City and has about 13,000 acres as a "buffer" zone around it, which also will be open for development. It's a big task, but the original Irvine Ranch was about 120,000 acres and that was handled well by private interests and citizen involvement. One never knows with El Toro.
But it is clear that some sort of auctioning of much of the property always has been doable, just as the Register and some others have argued. Had that path been taken, the county could have saved itself a lot of money and aggravation.
