In flagrant disregard of the public interest, the Orange County planning department and a project applicant coordinated to bypass the established public review process for Saddleback Meadows, a proposed housing development on 222 undeveloped acres along El Toro Road near Cook’s Corner in Trabuco Canyon, handing the Board of Supervisors a controversy and a slew of upset residents. The situation could have been avoided.
The public review process, required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and county ordinance, involves preparing and circulating environmental impact reports (EIRs) that inform the public and government decision makers about a project’s potential impacts on the environment, and identifying ways of avoiding or reducing those impacts before giving final government approval.
But in 2004, county planners and the applicant, California Quartet, LP, chose a different process for the project after undertaking secretive settlement negotiations to satisfy a neighbor who had challenged in court the applicant’s previously proposed 299-unit project and its 2002 EIR…