Office Conversion Proposed for Santa Ana Heights’ Core

County planners have recommended a redevelopment plan for Santa Ana Heights that would convert an area containing 294 homes in the heart of the community to business parks and provide noise insulation for hundreds of homes remaining below the flight path of John Wayne Airport.

The proposal, scaled back considerably from an alternative that would have eliminated as many as 1,000 residences from the noise-plagued community, was unveiled Friday after more than a year of study by the county’s Environmental Management Agency.

The area proposed for conversion to offices is the substantially rural neighborhood of half-acre lots in the interior of Santa Ana Heights--a neighborhood in which offices have been increasing in recent years. The proposal envisions preserving the estates along Mesa Drive, a number of apartments and condominiums, and hundreds of homes in the more established tracts along the fringes of the community.

In addition, it proposes replacing some of the agricultural properties and single-family homes bordering the new business parks with high-density apartments and condominiums, an option that would actually increase the number of residences in the community by 241.

Homes in Increased Jet Noise Area

A total of 348 of the homes to be preserved are within the area that will be most subject to increased jet noise if the airport is expanded from its current 41 jet flights a day to 73 flights, as envisioned in the master plan for the airport that is under review, along with the airport “compatibility” program for Santa Ana Heights.

To comply with state noise laws, the county would supply noise insulation free of charge in exchange for permission to fly over the homes without threat of lawsuits, under the staff’s recommendation.

The report also advises establishing a purchase-assurance program for all houses within the “jet noise impact area”--the area subject to an average daily noise level of 65 decibels. Such a program would allow owners to sell their property to the county at market value if they could find no other buyer. Some additional properties outside the noise-impact area--but within the zone designated for conversion--would also be eligible for the program.

As for the 90 acres proposed for conversion to offices, county officials said it is not certain whether the county would acquire all of the houses for immediate redevelopment or simply rezone the area and allow market forces to accomplish the conversion over a period of several years.

Condemning the homes of people who did not wish to sell would be “a possibility . . . but a last resort,” said county planning director Robert Fisher.

The proposal, he said, calls for conversion only of those residential areas for which planners feel there is little hope of maintenance as “viable--that is, stable, kept-up, desirable living areas.

“We make an important distinction between those areas and the neighborhoods that exhibit a strong sense of community, of good maintenance . . . and (which) are free from the influence of pressures to use the properties for different uses, and free from the pressures of speculation.”

The neighborhoods proposed for conversion to office use, primarily along Acacia, Birch and Cypress streets and in east Santa Ana Heights, “exhibit to us the pressures for conversion--a lot of deferred maintenance, speculation, of tenant rather than owner occupancy, and we think that increasing the noise impacts will only increase those pressures,” Fisher said.

While the ultimate decision on Santa Ana Heights rests with the Board of Supervisors, the staff’s recommendation is given a great deal of weight by the supervisors and the county Planning Commission in their land-use decisions. Nearly always, the board’s action on such matters, if it does not follow the staff’s advice, reflects some variation of it.

The Planning Commission will have a hearing on Santa Ana Heights Tuesday. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to make a final determination Jan. 30.

“I think it’s very unfair,” said Sue Cathcart, who has lived on Cypress Street for 22 years. Hers is one of the homes proposed for conversion in the staff’s recommendations.

“It gives no thought for the damage to life and limb,” she said. “There are so many people that are so (harmed) by this, and they don’t know where they’re going to go, or how they’re going to go. . . . It’s the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Marianne Towersey, a lifelong resident of Santa Ana Heights, also would be displaced.

“What can I say? This is my home,” she said. “I hope that the county is prepared to compensate the residents that are going to be displaced in a fair manner. That’s my main concern right now.”

Santa Ana Heights residents plan to meet Sunday in the Mesa Drive home of developer Buck Johns to discuss the proposal. Many also plan to go to the Planning Commission hearing in chartered buses, armed with placards and balloons. Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, several congressional aides, a number of City Council members and seven state legislators have agreed to attend the residents’ informational meeting Sunday.

County officials say they cannot carry out the proposed airport expansion unless they impose some program to reduce the impact of the noise on surrounding households. And because of the gradual encroachment of commercial development from nearby Bristol Avenue, they say, conversion of at least portions of Santa Ana Heights appears to be the best alternative.

A cost study of the purchase-assurance and noise-insulation programs is under way.

County officials expect that some homeowners in the proposed conversion area will elect to act as developers of their own property and participate in putting in the necessary new streets, sewers and water lines, Fisher said. But he said it may be necessary to impose assessments on all landowners in the area to accomplish the conversion.

The staff report, released Friday, makes no recommendation on one of the most hotly disputed questions concerning Santa Ana Heights--a proposal to extend University Drive through the community near Upper Newport Bay to create a new regional link between Newport Beach/Costa Mesa and Irvine.

Several of the proposed routes for the highway would cut through the dozen estates along the bay, including Johns’ home on Mesa Drive.

Rich Adler, project manager for the county, said it is likely the staff will simply recommend that the adjacent cities undertake a detailed study to determine which route, if any, is best for the University Drive connection.