Looking back...

35 years ago, Orange County was still known for it’s endless groves of citrus and other agricultural crops. Such visions though were rapidly making way for a new and more lucrative crop: Housing. The demand for tract housing started at the close of World War II and continues today.

With hundreds of thousands of acres of vast open ranch and agricultural fields dominating Orange County, The Armed Forces saw Orange County as an ideal location to set up training camps in a time when the nation was at war and needed training facilities to prepare for the war efforts.

Orange County was home to several Armed Forces training facilities, three of which; the Lighter Than Air base (LTA) in Tustin, the Army training facility at the Eddie Martin airport in Santa Ana Heights, and the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, were all located on James Irvine’s 90,000 acre Irvine Ranch property.

The establishment and use of these three facilities forever changed the face of Orange County’s history.

Many thousands of enlisted men and women who were brought to these facilities from Midwestern states to prepare for war fell in love with Orange County’s mild climate, Pacific Ocean breezes, and snow capped mountains framing the endless acres of open space. When the war had ended, many returned to Orange County to call home, and the tract housing boom began.

In Costa Mesa, goat and sheep grazing lands made way for hundreds of Victory tract homes in Westside, not too far from the old Santa Ana Army base, what is now the Orange County Fairgrounds. Other housing tracts sprouted up quickly throughout Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, and virtually every city north and west of the Costa Mesa freeway.

All this surge of housing growth occurred only in north Orange County for one reason: The Irvine Company. James Irvine owned and operated The Irvine Company; the 90,000 acre Irvine Ranch property which covered roughly one third of the total land mass of Orange County, dead center in the heart of the county.

The Irvine Company then is not The Irvine Company today. While most of Orange County to the north and west of the Irvine Ranch property was caught in the surge and frenzy of housing and industry developments, the Irvine Ranch and the rest of south Orange County’s inland ranch’s remained mostly pristine undeveloped land. That all changed 35 years ago. The Irvine Company, from it’s beginning up until the mid 1960’s was pro-ranching and pro-agricultural, not pro-development.

With the passing of James Irvine I, James Irvine II, and James Myford Irvine came new challenges and a new vision for The Company and the Ranch. Housing demands in Orange County crept ever closer to the Irvine Ranch boundary lines, until finally pressure to sell huge parcels of the Ranch for development was granted, but not without reluctance and hesitation. The Irvine Company sought to create a balance between utilizing and preserving the Ranch and selling/developing the Ranch.

To achieve such a balance, a vision was needed. A master plan.

The rest is history!

A need for a master plan

There are virtually no orange groves left, few ranch's and grazing lands, and only token parcels of agricultural farming left in Orange County today, but surprisingly, over half of the Irvine Ranch remains and shall forever remain pristine Wildlands! Even more surprising, is that the 55,00 acres of Irvine Ranch Wildlands is contiguous with former MCAS El Toro to the north and to the southwest to the Pacific Ocean.

Of the three Armed Forces training facilities located on the Irvine Ranch, only one remains in operation today: the John Wayne airport serving nearly 8.8 million annual passengers as a civilian airport on a total of 550 acres at the face of what is left of the Santa Ana Heights agricultural, dairy and equestrian based community established over 70 years ago, and developed in part by James Irvine II.

The history of the Eddie Martin airstrip-turned military training center- turned civilian airport is a long and extensive one. The sum of which is this: it became a commercial airport despite much opposition from the communities closest to it for one reason: there was no other available facility in Orange County.

In 1967, The county didn’t have what The Irvine Company had just obtained: a vision and a master plan. With all the surge of housing and industry development, and virtually no transportation infrastructure master plan to speak of, the county set out to create one, only it was a little too late.

The County Board of Supervisors realized that the economic future of the county depended upon the development of a viable commercial airport. The county was given control over the former Eddie Martin airport after the war efforts and operated the facility as the Orange County airport. The 550 acre facility was limited to a single 5,700 foot runway and would prove inadequate to remain competitive in the distant future. Efforts to locate a larger, more adequate facility in which to master plan a commercial airport failed, for there was no viable available location in Orange County.

So with no other alternative, the county Supervisors authorized the study of transforming the Orange County airport into a commercial airport, complete with a proposed 10,000 foot runway to replace the barely adequate existing runway. Newport Beach resident John Wayne, and Supervisor Riley were among the first initial protesters opposed to the idea of introducing commercial jet aircraft to the facility, and along with a strong protest from Santa Ana Heights and Newport Beach and Costa Mesa residents, the proposed 10,000 foot runway was blocked, but did not prevent the introduction of commercial jets to Orange County airport.

In 1985, 14 years latter, Orange County airport had grown and transformed into a competitive commercial airport, renamed John Wayne Airport and was equipped with a new terminal named after Supervisor Riley, in a rather ironic twist, after the two foremost opponents of the commercial airport development. John Wayne himself would not have supported the airport having been named after him. The Newport Beach City Council, along with other activists groups, continued the fight after the passing of John Wayne, and after much litigation, reached a 20-year settlement agreement with the county which expires in 2005.

And now today...

In terms of reaching their goal today, the County of Orange has not come any closer then when they started in 1967 in securing a permanent and adequate location for a commercial airport. This, after having spent the last 7 years and over $50 Million dollars in the planning of a commercial airport at the closed MCAS El Toro, when it was announced that the base was to be closed in 1996.

Why did the county fail to secure El Toro as an airport when they had the perfect opportunity?

They still did not have what The Irvine Company had obtained:

The right vision and master plan.

Observation...

Sometimes the most effective plan is the most different.

What made The Irvine Company’s vision for their master planned Irvine Ranch successful was that they mimicked no one, and broke new ground in urban planning by thinking different. Creative thinking knows no bounds, but is balanced within it’s bounds.

When surveying El Toro, we used this same different approach.

We recognized the importance and significance of the 53,000 acres of Irvine Ranch Wildlands and designed our plan around it, and incorporated it into our plan.

And it makes sense.

Moving forward ...

The Wildlands Ranch Airport Master Plan.

It all started back in 1998. The V-Plan concept was named the Wildlands Ranch Alternative Runway Layout Plan because in addition to creating an alternative Airport Layout Plan, we incorporated other alternative concepts into our reuse plan, including a true unobstructed, recessed Wildlands/ Recreational corridor into our plan to link the great Irvine Ranch Land Reserve North of El Toro to the great Irvine Ranch Land Reserve Southwest of El Toro. This important design element would provide a true trans-valley corridor from the Cleveland National Forest to the Crystal Cove State Beach.

The county announced in 1999 that our Wildlands Ranch Alternative Runway Layout Plan would be the final alternative included in their EIR 573 for El Toro.

The county soon announced that their own Airport and Open Space plan would include the same proposed unobstructed Wildlands corridor. The Irvine Company also adopted the corridor, incorporating it into their Wildlands open space marketing materials. The City of Irvine was the last to latter accept the concept and began including it within their numerous non-aviation MCAS El Toro reuse plan proposals.

Today’s Wildlands Ranch Airport Master Plan has evolved to embrace the newest technologies that are redefining the way modern airports are now being designed. At the heart of our Master Plan is our optimized OCX Pilots V-Plan Airport Layout Plan. Incorporating the newest technologies and refinements into our Master Plan continues to prove the viability of our airport plan.

the Pilots V-Plan: intro overview  comparisons  review  engineering