Consultants to Begin Redevelopment Plan

Planning for an ambitious face-lift of 856 acres of Lake Forest began Tuesday as the City Council appointed a team of redevelopment consultants.

Their task is to draw up a plan for revitalizing about 5 miles of the congested, aging commercial area along El Toro Road and to create a downtown for the community.

“This will be the largest project the city will probably ever undertake,” Councilman Peter Herzog said.

Three land-use and financial-planning firms were signed to develop an overview of the project, a task expected to take six to nine months.

There are no specific plans or concepts yet for the area, which stretches along El Toro Road from Trabuco Road to Interstate 5.

The consultants will spend two months familiarizing themselves with Lake Forest before they open a series of community meetings to seek input from residents.

Officials describe El Toro Road’s business corridor, plagued in recent years by increasing traffic congestion and decreasing occupancy rates, as a hodgepodge of shops and restaurants.

Gayle Ackerman, the city’s senior planner, said the area is “a whole series of individual shopping centers, each developed individually without a lot of integration. It presents unique design challenges.”

Said Herzog: “It was put together in pieces. There wasn’t much planning done here.”

Redevelopment of other South County cities, however, has been controversial. Plans for large-scale projects in Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano met with adamant community opposition from residents who preferred the unplanned, informal look of those cities.