Capping 12 years of effort by EHL, and following settlement of litigation, 75% of this family-owned 23,000-acre property in the Orange County foothills will remain wildlife habitat and ranchland in perpetuity.


 
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Just inland of San Juan Capistrano, and adjacent to the Cleveland National Forest and Camp Pendleton, the Rancho Mission Viejo (RMV) has been identified as a globally significant representation of Southern California’s natural heritage. In recent years, the EHL-led Heart and Soul Coalition and the Sierra Club Friends of the Foothills campaign increased public awareness and support for conservation. Nevertheless, in 2004, the County of Orange approved a 14,000-unit development that produced fragmentation and loss of key habitat areas. While litigation followed, informal discussions between EHL and RMV over the past 2 years created a constructive dynamic that led to settlement. This “win-win” outcome, supported by 5th District Supervisor Tom Wilson, successfully built upon the family’s own vision of balanced development, ranching, and conservation.
 
While maintaining the same maximum number of homes, development was consolidated into a footprint reduced by nearly 2,000 acres, resulting in several key conservation gains. Within the undammed San Mateo Creek watershed, over 10,000 acres of intact habitat featuring oak and sycamore-lined canyons will help support southern steelhead trout downstream. Connectivity to the neighboring Donna O’Neill Land Conservancy will be maintained. Over a mile of prime coastal sage scrub in Chiquita Canyon will shelter the largest population of California gnatcatchers in the United States. Strongholds of the endangered arroyo toad will receive protections meeting the recommendation of expert scientists.
 
While not achieving all our original goals, this agreement, crafted with continuous scientific input, protects the most important resource areas, and does so without public acquisition funds. We salute the leadership of the Rancho Mission Viejo and sincerely thank all those who responded to action alerts and testified at hearings. Our partners in the litigation and negotiation were the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sea and Sage Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and Laguna Greenbelt. The law firm of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger ably represented us.