Board Gives Up Open Space That Now Has Houses : Government: Builder constructed 21 homes on 3.35 acres designated public open space. Supervisors forsake claim.

SANTA ANA —  Orange County supervisors Tuesday gave up any claim to acreage near Trabuco Canyon where a developer has built 21 homes on land designated as public open space.

The supervisors’ unanimous vote followed the recommendation of county staff members who said that relinquishing claim to the 3.35 acres would clear the way for buyers to purchase the homes. The sites are in the Robinson Ranch planned community, built by the William Lyon Co.

County Environmental Management Agency officials said the action was consistent with open-space boundary adjustments anticipated in 1986--when the supervisors approved a doubling of the number of homes that could be built at Robinson Ranch.

“There has been no mistake on the part of the county staff or the Board” of Supervisors, said Environmental Management Agency Director Michael M. Ruane. “. . . It’s simply a title mistake.”

Ruane also said that the county would have “no basis” to seek remuneration from the Lyon Co. or the title insurance and engineering firms it employed--which both failed to note the open-space designation for the 3.35 acres.

But to help prevent a recurrence, Ruane said the county would now “require title reports (from developers) earlier in the subdivision process.” The intent, Ruane said, is to “require complete disclosure.”

Richard M. Sherman, the Lyon Co.’s senior vice president and general counsel, has said that his firm was unaware of the chunk of irrevocably offered open space until August, when informed by the engineering firm of Hunsaker & Associates.

As described by Ruane and his staff, construction of the 21 homes resulted largely because of an error by the now-defunct Ticor title company. When the supervisors granted final approval for development of Robinson Ranch in 1989, Ticor and the Hunsaker engineering firm failed to note that in 1984 the 3.35 acres had been offered irrevocably as open space.

Records show that the supervisors’ action in 1986 that called for the future boundary “modifications” also allowed the Lyon Co. to build 518 more homes than had been approved originally at Robinson Ranch. At the same time, the Lyon Co. offered to increase from 377 acres to 503 acres the amount of open space provided, according to Sherman, the Lyon executive. Sherman also said the company provided $500,000, the cost of an acre of land in many parts of the county, for improvements at nearby O’Neill Regional Park.

Ruane, referring to how the 3.35 acres relinquished on Tuesday fits into the overall build-out of Robinson Ranch, said that the public is still getting more open space than it would have originally.

“The county has not been deprived of any open space,” Ruane said, responding to criticisms voiced at Tuesday’s meeting by residents.

Sherry Lee Meddick, a critic of the county’s stewardship of open space, was not assuaged. Meddick, chairwoman of the Rural Canyons Residents Assn., said she believes the county should at least have sought a commensurate offer of acreage from the Lyon Co.

“If I’m a homeowner and I build part of my house onto my neighbor’s property, do I get my neighbor’s property?” Meddick asked in an interview. The Lyon Co. “agreed to go ahead and develop under these conditions. Consequently, it’s their responsibility. . . . Unless the county comes down on people in a very meaningful way, this is going to happen all the time.”

According to Assistant County Counsel John R. Griset, the county originally accepted the irrevocable offer of the 3.35 acres of open space for “purposes of recordation only.” The effect of such a transaction is that the developer could not build homes on the acreage without authorization of the county, Griset told The Times.

Also Tuesday, Ruane’s top aide, John W. Sibley, termed “totally inaccurate” and “absurd” statements that the county, by relinquishing the 3.35 acres, would lose open space.

When one member of the audience suggested that Lyon should remove the houses, Ruane said that the county would have no legal standing to seek remuneration from the developer, the Hunsaker firm or the title company. Assistant County Counsel Terry C. Andrus said the county’s chance of winning a court challenge would be “just about zero.”

At one point, Supervisor Roger R. Stanton also questioned the performance of the Hunsaker firm, noting its role in a similar land dispute last year in Laguna Niguel. In that instance, Hunsaker was the engineer for another developer that built 100 homes on 96 acres that also had been offered irrevocably as public open space.

That offer was later rescinded by the Laguna Niguel Community Services District, under circumstances that prompted a county grand jury investigation. The probe ended with no criminal charges, but the grand jury issued a report that accused the developer of having “skirted the fringes of legality.”

“Certainly I object to errors being made by professional engineers,” Stanton said. “ . . . In class, two mistakes and you get an F.”

Supervisor Don R. Roth attributed criticisms voiced at Tuesday’s meeting to news accounts. “The board doesn’t write the newspaper articles,” Roth said, adding that he believed the reports “really discolored the whole concept here of what happened.”