June 12, 2007 Foothills Sentry Page 1
Controversial Sully Miller Land for Sale; Neighbors Wonder Who’s in Charge
By Theresa Sears
Sixty-seven acres of the Sully-Miller property abutting Santiago Canyon Road in Orange, including the seven-acre horse arena across the street, are for sale, with bids required by June 22. The sale is expected to Close October 15.
The property, owned by Hanson PLC (Sully Miller Contracting Company), was formerly used for an aggregate mining operation. It has been divided into four packages ranging in size from 7.6 to 26.8 acres and is priced at $3.5 to $6 million. Almost 50 acres of the property is already in escrow for Orange Park Acres Resident John Martin, owner and hopeful developer of the Ridgeline Golf Course property.
Most of the acreage out for bid is zoned “sand and gravel.” The horse arena property is zoned R-1-40 (one home per acre) and 10 acres of another package is zoned R-1-8. The parcels are bisected by Santiago Creek and attendant habitat; much of the northerly portions are an inundation zone.
The sale was announced in mid May, three months after Fieldstone Homes abandoned its interest in the property. Fieldstone held an option on the land since 2003 when approval for its proposed 180-home housing tract was given and then rescinded by the Orange City Council.
Horses not Houses
The Fieldstone development was defeated by a citizens’ coalition that collected 9,000 signatures to launch a referendum that would have reversed the City Council’s decision to rezone the property as residential. Referendum supporters opposed the traffic congestion and urban density the housing project would inject into the neighborhood. They believed the land would be better used as an equestrian facility and/or sports park. Faced with a potential voter revolt, the Council took back the zoning change and reinstated the land’s original “sand and gravel” designation. That action prevented Fieldstone from building houses and the acreage has been in limbo ever since.
“The Orange City Council had an opportunity to define the future of this property by doing some visionary planning – starting with the update of the General Plan,” says Theresa Sears, Orange Park Acres resident and co-chair of the Save Barham Ranch effort. “But it didn’t include East Orange -- the Sully Miller site, Ridgeline, the Irvine Company property, or serious traffic issues in the general plan update. The City of Orange consistently allows developers to do its planning for it, and there’s a danger it could happen again.”
Several developers have expressed interest in the property. Whether it will end up in the hands of one entity or several, remains to be seen. The highest bidders – or bidder – will have their own ideas about how to maximize their investment. It could be housing, private sports facilities, commercial enterprises or a combination there of. Whatever the plan, the purchaser will have to ask the City Council for a zoning change. If history is any indicator (The Irvine Company’s Santiago Hills II project), the council will likely approve whatever plans a developer presents.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” says Mark Sandford, former Orange Park Acres Association president and current resident. “We had the best of both worlds in 2003. Fieldstone was going to give us a park and the riding arena. We would have had open space and sports facilities and the developer would have paid for it.”
Planning Not Piecemeal
Sandford and Sears were on opposite sides of the Fieldstone debate, but they agree on the planning vacuum that exists today. “There’s no direction from the City,” Sandford notes. “This area should be planned as a whole, not pieced together by developers. Orange hasn’t built a new baseball field for kids over 12 in 40 years. There’s very little property left for planned open space and recreation. Sully-Miller, Ridgeline – that’s it. I don’t see any leadership coming from the City.”
“The City Council has ignored East Orange,” says Sears. “Right now it is updating the general plan, but the focus stops at Tustin Avenue and portions of East Chapman. If you look on the General Plan website for East Orange, all you’ll find is the Irvine Company’s Santiago Hills Development. The City is not planning East Orange, developers are.”
Residents see the Sully Miller property as the last chance for a thoughtful approach to the community’s equestrian, recreation, and open space needs as well as an opportunity to protect the Santiago Creek habitat.
“There are a lot of interested parties,” says Sandford. “We may have different ideas about what this should be, but we want whatever it is to be planned. Without planning, we’re going to get a hodgepodge. We want to look back in five years and say this – whatever it becomes – was done well.”
Taken from The Foothills Sentry http://www.foothillssentry.com/