Chiquita Ridge Survey Results

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA — Rancho Santa Margarita's heavily debated Chiquita Ridge development project's survey results are in. One resident discusses the project, changes and what is next for the pristine land.

This article is meant to update you on the current situation on Chiquita Ridge, if you aren’t familiar, then please review the information on the city's website here and my previous detailed article here.

What has changed since then is that Hunden Partners submitted their draft review of the resident survey for a sports park, the full report can be read here.

The presentation to the city council was on May 24, 2017 and can be heard on this link if you click on “Audio” and select Agenda item 7. The presentation is 75 minutes, with 10 minutes of resident feedback at the end (everyone is against the sports park). This survey cost $54,000 to conduct, and was focused on the interest of having an indoor sports park, outdoor sports park, both or neither. Results were:

• 257 residents responded (less than 2% of adults in RSM)
• 62% don’t want any sports park at all
• 24% want both an indoor and outdoor park
• 14% were split between either an indoor park or outdoor park
• There is a total lack of public indoor sports facilities in town
• There is almost no gap between supply and demand of outdoor sports facilities in town

This graphic is from the front page of the Hunden presentation:

There are four main scenarios presented, but Hunden felt that Scenario One (Indoor Athletic Facility) was the most viable, it consisted of:

• Six to eight hardwood courts
• One multipurpose indoor field
• Active running and walking trails that take advantage of Chiquita Ridge’s topography.
• 800 parking spaces
• Cost - $37,700,000
• City will lose $270,000 per year on the park

The goal is to be a destination for sports leagues that come from out of town, so that then means we want a hotel or two at Chiquita Ridge for them to stay at, which means we then want all the shops and restaurants so that they stay and spent their money in RSM and we collect the taxes. The projected tax revenue from a hotel for the city, works out to about $20,000 per year. Estimates are that they would average 5 room rentals a day, which doesn’t seem to create an attractive scenario for a builder.

Councilman Holloway asked the most and best questions of Hunden, the other council members were either silent or had little input, councilman Vaughn was absent. One of Holloways very good questions had to do with how Hunden had determined interest from the sports leagues. Was it just “some guy” that said “yea, we’d love more parks” or was there written documentation of interest and need with supporting numbers. The answer was that it was verbal, there was no written documents. This leads us to believe that even the very weak interest that was shown, was optimistic.

The resident feedback at the end of the presentation was all strongly against any development. Four people spoke, three of them were current and former youth league coaches, one of them was in the survey groups of the sports leagues that Hunden conducted in February. There has never been an instance that I’m aware of, that anyone came or wrote in and expressed strong interest in Chiquita Ridge being flattened and developed. Not counting the original litigation to acquire the property, the city has spent about $3,000,000 on the whole Chiquita Ridge process. What I see is an opportunity for some enterprising folks to open some indoor basketball and volleyball facilities in town if there are any big buildings available.

What also hasn’t been talked about, and will be the topic of a future column, is all the unexploded ordinance that is still in these hillsides from when it use to be a bombing range. You can some older LA Times articles here and here. The expected price tag to finish cleaning it up is $2.7 million and the Army Corps of Engineers won’t have a budget for it until 2023. There is significant grading required to do any building at Chiquita Ridge, so this will likely come up as a problem. I haven’t seen it mentioned in any of the studies that have been done.

This is a great time to let the city council know your opinion on the subject. During the open comments on this segment, Mayor Gamble said that they are interested in what the residents have to say. Hopefully a full and detailed survey will be made available to residents soon and a significantly larger response will provide more clarity than this sports park interest survey did. You can email the council directly to let them know your opinions. This is a big deal, it is very impactful, get involved now while you still can.

TBeall@cityofrsm.org
CGamble@cityofrsm.org
BMcGirr@cityofrsm.org
MVaughn@cityofrsm.org
JHolloway@cityofrsm.org