Residents living in and around Orange County’s canyons are protesting a 181-unit residential development planned for Trabuco Canyon — proposed and approved decades ago, but only getting its final consideration for approval now.
The site for the project, referred to as the Saddleback Meadows project, was originally zoned in 1980. In 1988, a tract map outlined a plan to construct 705 residential lots.
Over the next few decades, the project received legal challenges from several environmental groups that ended up reducing the scope of the development down to its current size of 181 residential lots. Settlements from that litigation reduced the total developable space in order to preserve sensitive environmental areas…