Developer Buys O.C. Land Sought as Wilderness Area

ANAHEIM — A Newport Beach developer backed by an Arizona investment firm has paid $15 million for 663 acres of environmentally sensitive land in a northeastern Orange County canyon, where the Anaheim City Council has approved a planned community.

Environmentalists still hope to combine state, federal and private funds to buy the rugged parcel, where mountain lions, bobcats and deer roam, and connect it to a chain of wilderness areas stretching south to San Diego County. The state has agreed to provide $1 million toward that goal.

St. Clair Co. said Wednesday that it bought the proposed Coal Canyon project from Hon Development Co. of Laguna Hills in partnership with Phoenix’s DMB Associates. DMB is involved separately in a joint venture to develop the 4,000-acre Ladera community on Rancho Mission Viejo land in south Orange County.

The Anaheim Hills area is south of the Riverside Freeway at Coal Canyon Road. The planned community, approved by the Anaheim City Council in 1992, is to include 1,550 homes, eight acres of retail, an elementary school and 360 acres of open space.

Claire Schlotterbeck, president of the nonprofit group Hills for Everyone, said the area and a separate 32-acre parcel in the canyon are “missing links” between preserves in central Orange County and north of the Riverside Freeway.

She said endangered species such as the California gnatcatcher and Braunton’s milk vetch have been found on the land since the project was approved. At the very least, that will force the developers to revise their environmental impact report on the project, she said.

“We knew the sale was in the works and we still hope to buy the land,” Schlotterbeck said.

In the tough battle for approval of its project, Hon eliminated plans to build 18 luxury homes on another 1,000 acres in the canyon where a rare Tecate cypress forest grows. That land was sold to the state for $4 million as a reserve.

Officials at Hon, St. Clair and DMB were unavailable for comment after the sale was announced Wednesday afternoon.