El Toro’s Effect on O.C.’s ‘Galaxy’

Surely it isn’t just because of my 50 years in urban planning or my experience as former director of strategic planning for SCAG that I am so opposed to the proposed airport. Hundreds of thousands of others sense the violence the facility would wreak on the livable communities and quality of life in south Orange County. Perhaps they also sense the irreparable distortion it could cause to the ongoing evolution of the larger regional “world city,” which, for all its imperfections, has still been experiencing more diverse growth than any place in the industrialized world, and is at the forefront in innovating a new urban form: a “galaxy” of many smaller cities and towns, in contrast to the crowded, packed-in urbanization of older places.

South County growth is healthy and increasingly balanced. The airport would induce forced growth and pollution leading to deterioration and obsolescence in our young cities. In addition, it would mean losing the opportunity to create a new style urban center on the El Toro site to serve as a cosmopolitan hub for this growing area, and it would mean losing the chance to locate the airport more to the east in the vicinity of I-5, where most new growth is slated to occur. There is more room to plan adjacent uses, where jobs are, and will be, desperately needed, and where regional and state agencies now recommend alignment of the new high-speed rail connecting Northern and Southern California.

Leaders, wake up. We have another destiny. We can leave a vastly better legacy.

FRANK E. HOTCHKISS

Laguna Niguel

* The battle over the El Toro reuse continues with pro-airport North County verses no-airport South County.

The North County is being backed by the Board of Supervisors. The giddy developers in Newport Beach are dreaming of the millions they will make if an international airport is indeed built. The South County residents have twice voted by more than 70% against an airport.

South County does however have a wild card not yet played. The underdogs have one of the most powerful men in the state of California, the CEO of the Irvine Co., Donald Bren. But, where is Donald? Why haven’t we heard from the man whose company name bears the same name of the city where the airport is being planned? Why hasn’t he stepped forward to support the city of Irvine and its surrounding neighbors, those same people who invested their hard-earned money to buy a dream home in one of his company’s beautifully planned communities?

KENT MADDOX

Irvine