After more than 45 years, a housing project in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains in eastern Orange County has finally been approved.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors earlier this month rejected an appeal from lawyers representing Saddleback Canyons Conservancy and Rural Canyons Conservation, who sought to stop developer California Quartet LP’s long-debated Saddleback Meadows development in Trabuco Canyon.
The board voted 4-0, with one abstention, to support the Planning Commission’s January decision. The move now greenlights a scaled-back 181-home project in unincorporated Orange County, which has been in the works since 1980.
Saddleback Meadows to be Built on 222 Acres
The decision could be the last chapter in a housing project that has faced debate and challenges from Orange County officials, developers and environmental groups for over 40 years.
The 181-home Saddleback Meadows project is slated to be built on a 222-acre vacant site on the east side of El Toro Road, about half a mile south of Santiago Canyon Road and Live Oak Canyon Road.
The area sits just east of the 2,100-home Portola Hills community and north of the gated 84-home Skyridge community in Mission Viejo.
According to staff reports, the developer plans to build 181 single-family homes on about 6,000-square-foot lots across 25 acres, construct private streets on another 10 acres, and preserve the remaining 186 acres as open space, including hiking trails, a natural resource protection area and a scenic preservation area.
Scaled Down Project Originally Called for 705 Homes
The original developers planned a 705-unit manufactured housing community for the site, which was approved in 1980. It is unclear what happened to those developers, but the land was later sold.
Reports say California Quartet, based in Washington, D.C., bought the property in 1993.
A staff report from the Orange County Board of Supervisors said that over the past several decades, the current developer changed the plan from 299 homes in 1998 to 283 in 2002 and later to 266 in 2004.
Each time, the developer reduced the project after legal challenges and settlement talks with environmental groups and neighboring organizations.
In 2022, county officials approved another change, reducing the number of homes to 181 after additional engineering studies and arbitration stemming from earlier settlement agreements.
Community Voices Public Safety Concerns
Opponents argued that the housing project poses a risk to public safety because it is in a high-fire-hazard area. They also claimed the county did not properly study evacuation routes or emergency traffic, among other things.
Orange County officials said the project’s environmental impacts and development rights have already been thoroughly reviewed through earlier studies, court settlements and county approvals going back to the 1990s, according to staff reports.
Supervisor Don Wagner, who represents the district, said the Orange County Fire Authority reviewed and approved the project’s fire master plan, fire protection plan and evacuation access. He supported their review.
Wagner also dismissed concerns that building another 181 homes in a community with more than 2,100 homes surrounding it would increase residents’ risk.
He said today’s building standards are much stricter and better than in the past.
“The fire danger, according to the experts, has not just materialized and is not a reason to stop this project,” Wagner said during the meeting.
