Project '99 Newsletter, May 1998

A Plan of Action to Protect and Improve Our Community
A Note from Larry Agran Chair of Project 99

Dear Neighbor,

The County Supervisors are slowly but surely being forced to give County residents an honest side-by-side choice between two very different futures for the 4700-acre El Toro Marine Corps Base. Future No. 1 is the County’s international airport proposal — their “Airport Community Plan” — with all its noise, traffic, air pollution and related environmental devastation. The Airport Community Plan reflects the process that produced it — a top-down, bloated County bureaucracy that is out of touch with the citizens of Orange County. So far, the County has spent more than $20 million to produce and promote a plan so unpopular that last month a majority of Supervisors felt obliged to express their preference for a “scaled-down” El Toro International Airport.

Future No. 2 is the non-aviation reuse plan — “The Millennium Plan” — developed by thousands of Orange County citizens and now officially published by ETRPA, the seven-city anti-airport El Toro Reuse Planning Authority.

The Millennium Plan grew out of a partnership with Orange County citizens. Project 99 and other anti-airport groups took responsibility for organizing a genuine citizen-based planning process. With ETRPA’s encouragement, we conducted surveys, focus groups, and workshops — all aimed at producing our own non-aviation reuse report, called A Real Choice for a Better Future. As agreed, we submitted our report to ETRPA. The Millennium Plan incorporates many of the ideas and recommendations we offered. (See previous story.)

As I said to the County Supervisors when The Millennium Plan was unveiled: We now have two competing plans for two very different futures for Orange County. Let the competition begin. Let the people decide.

The Millennium Plan
It’s Here…It’s Great!

On March 30th — on time and on budget — the seven-city El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA) unveiled “The Millennium Plan,” the official South County plan for the non-aviation reuse of the El Toro Marine Corps Base. The Millennium Plan, subtitled “Making a Difference for the Next Generation,” represents the best ideas of citizen activists, elected officials and professional planners.

ETRPA’s Millennium Plan incor-porates many of the ideas suggested by citizens at workshops sponsored by Project 99 in October of 1997. By all objective measurements, it is a plan that’s environmentally and economically superior to the County’s deeply flawed El Toro International Airport proposal.

The Millennium Plan transforms the 4717 acres of land at the El Toro Marine Corps Base into a dynamic community at the geographic center of Orange County. The imaginative plan divides the property into four districts — an Education, Research and Technology District; an Arts and Culture District; a Sports and Entertainment District; and a Habitat Preserve District. In total, the plan allocates 2150 acres (46 percent of the property) for parks and open space, while offering major economic benefits to the entire Orange County economy. At the heart of The Millennium Plan is a vast 360-acre Central Park. Linked to the nearby 995-acre Habitat Preserve District — permanently protecting ample hillsides and wildlife from development — Orange County’s new Central Park is destined to become California’s fourth great metropolitan park in the tradition of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, Los Angeles’ Griffith Park and San Diego’s Balboa Park. It will feature diverse recreational amenities for both active and passive use including museums, theaters and a cultural complex. The Central Park will be connected to other recreational facilities and smaller parks through an extensive system of open space corridors. The Central Park is part of a 1272-acre Arts and Culture District, which will also offer a mixed-use urban village that features a pedestrian-friendly envi-ronment with a variety of housing in close proximity to jobs and recreational facilities.

The 715-acre Sports and Enter-tainment District will blend professional sports venues, inter-national training centers, multi-media entertainment attractions, conference and convention facilities, and resort hotel accommodations. This district, located on the southern portion of the Marine Corps Base, will feature an outdoor community sports complex, a golf course, and land for a sports arena. The area will also include an intermodal transportation center — anchored at the current Irvine Train Station — as well as limited commercial and residential development.

The 1301-acre Education, Research and Technology District is the economic engine that drives The Millennium Plan. This district is located on the west side of the El Toro property, adjacent to the highly successful Irvine Spectrum. This business-friendly district provides an environment for leading-edge university campus facilities, research institutes, think tanks and technology parks.

The Millennium Plan is projected to create nearly 50,000 on-site jobs and over 100,000 jobs countywide when the plan is fully implemented. Remarkably, the plan is expected to contribute over $12 billion in annual output, including an estimated annual income of $4 billion for the County economy.

Alan Ellstrand, Project 99’s Director of Media and a member of ETRPA’s planning advisory committee, said, “Thanks to hundreds of Project 99’s supporters and thousands of citizens across Orange County, we now have a credible non-aviation reuse plan that is clearly superior to the County’s highly destructive international airport plan.” Ellstrand added, “Now, our job is to carry The Millennium Plan to every household in every neighborhood in Orange County.”

County Supervisors Vote for “Scaled-Down” Airport

Faced with growing countywide opposition to their proposed El Toro International Airport, County Supervisors last month gave rushed approval to a “scaled-down” facility — what is misleadingly described as a “mid-sized” international airport.

Specifically, at their April 21st meeting, three Supervisors (with Supervisors Tom Wilson and Todd Spitzer voting “no”) said they “preferred” a commercial airport at El Toro big enough to handle 24 million annual passengers, both domestic and international, as well as around-the-clock air cargo flights.

Translated into everyday numbers, this means that the “scaled-down” facility will have 492 flight operations per 24-hour period, or an average of just over 20 takeoffs and landings per hour.

Karen Byers, Project 99’s Director of Communications, denounced County officials and their “preferred” plan. “Who do they think they’re kidding?” asked Byers. “In 1996, the Supervisors approved an environmental impact report calling for a 38-million-annual-passenger El Toro International Airport — about two-thirds as large as today’s LAX. Even if you could believe these guys — and you can’t — their 24-million-annual passenger airport would be a monster about half the size of today’s LAX.”

Ed Pope, Project 99’s Outreach Director, commented: “Think about it — a takeoff or landing every 3 minutes, including nighttime passenger and cargo operations. And unlike LAX, where takeoffs are over the ocean, El Toro is land-locked.” Pope concluded, “Around-the-clock landings will come in over Dana Point, Laguna Niguel, Aliso Viejo, and Laguna Hills. Takeoffs, according to the County plan, will be to the east over Lake Forest, Rancho Santa Margarita and Mission Viejo, and to the north over Irvine, Tustin, Villa Park, Orange, and Fullerton.”

Project ’99 is a special project of the Tides Center, a duly registered public charity. Donations to Project ’99/Tides Center are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

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