Tentative Settlement Reached in Lawsuit to Block Aliso Viejo

A tentative settlement has been reached in a lawsuit that aimed at blocking the 20,000-unit Aliso Viejo planned community in south Orange County, officials said Thursday.

Under terms of the settlement, to be presented to the Irvine City Council during a closed session Saturday morning, Laguna Greenbelt Inc., Irvine and Laguna Beach would drop their court joint bid to overturn last year’s approval by the Board of Supervisors of an agreement to protect the development from changes in county zoning in return for company financing of roads, a new fire station and other public facilities.

Slow-growth advocates argued that county supervisors “gave away the store” in the development agreement and alleged that the document was a means of protecting the Aliso Viejo project from the countywide slow-growth initiative, which was defeated at the polls in June.

All Legal Actions Are Off

Irvine Mayor Larry Agran said today the settlement would mean that all parties will drop their legal actions, including a lawsuit alleging that Irvine’s participation in the agreement was a misuse of public funds.

Agran said the tentative settlement resulted partly from enormous legal costs in the case (more than $700,000 for all the parties combined) and from a desire to focus attention on another issue: a proposal to reduce the size of the planned San Joaquin Hills toll road project near the border of Newport Beach and Irvine--from eight or 10 lanes down to six lanes.

Another factor, Agran said, was the defeat of the countywide slow-growth initiative. “The people have spoken, and although we don’t agree with the result, we respect what the voters have decided,” he said on behalf of the measure’s backers.

Part of the thinking among environmentalists, also, was that the Aliso Viejo project was too far along to be stopped. Most of the land involved has been graded, especially near the planned toll road.

“Most of the damage to the land is done,” one attorney involved said, “and the Mission Viejo Co. has tentative tract maps approved by the county, so their right to develop would be difficult to challenge in a trial.”

Irvine and Laguna Beach joined the lawsuit to block the Aliso Viejo project, partly because of doubts that Laguna Greenbelt Inc., an environmental group, could afford a protracted court battle and partly because Agran and his supporters did not want development agreements approved by the Board of Supervisors to circumvent the then-burgeoning slow-growth movement.

Laguna Beach officials were also anxious about the traffic that will be generated by Aliso Viejo and the planned toll road.

Specific Provisions

Elizabeth Brown, president of Laguna Greenbelt Inc., said Thursday that she is unaware of the specific provisions of the proposed settlement.

But she said the Greenbelt group may still fight the planned toll road once attorneys have had a chance to review a new environmental impact report being prepared for the project.

Richard G. Munsell, a planning consultant who sued the Irvine council over its involvement in the Aliso Viejo litigation, said he has agreed to the tentative settlement even though he is not happy with the outcome.

“I didn’t get enough,” Munsell said. “I wanted the council members to dig into their own pockets to reimburse the taxpayers for their actions.”

Mission Viejo Co. officials could not be reached for comment.