Orange Planning Commission OKs Villa Park-Imperial Highway Link

Over the objections of hundreds of area residents, the Orange Planning Commission recommended Monday night that the city construct a 1.6-mile highway through undeveloped canyons and hills to connect Loma Street in Villa Park with Imperial Highway in Anaheim Hills.

The recommendation, which follows years of planning and public debate, leaves just one more step--approval by the City Council--before construction can begin. The council is expected to take up the matter in about five weeks.

If approved, the connecting road would become a “modified major arterial,” accommodating up to 40,000 vehicles per day.

The commission voted 4 to 1 in favor of the connection. One member was absent.

In supporting the proposed road, Commissioner Naomi Mason said the Planning Commission “bent over backwards by looking at alternative road alignments.”

She said the proposed road has been in the county master plan since the early 1960s and that area homeowners could discover “with very little investigation” where the road would eventually lead.

The road would be a 1.6-mile curving roadway through undeveloped canyons and hills, roughly skirting the Orange-Villa Park boundary for much of its route.

The initial engineering plan calls for a two-lane roadway that could in later years be expanded to as many as six lanes.

The road design adopted, known as Plan E, represents a compromise from the original proposed road, which would have been directly in view of area homeowners, according to an engineering report. The compromise would channel the road through hills further east than where the original road was to have gone.

Area homeowners strenuously objected to even a modified plan Monday night. Although the public hearing phase of the commission’s review ended two weeks ago, about 250 homeowners turned up to protest the decision and say they will bring their concerns about the road’s impact before the City Council.

More than 3,000 area homeowners, organized under the acronym ROAR (Residents Opposing Arterial Roads), are concerned that any kind of major arterial will “destroy a way of life” in the area, according to ROAR attorney Marlene Fox.

Residents of bedroom communities surrounding the proposed road moved to the area because they sought privacy, Fox said.

“They made a conscious election to live in east Orange because it was semi-rural. . . . Once you give Loma the same traffic congestion as Tustin Avenue, they will have lost the benefit of their bargain.”

She said area homeowners are concerned about noise, highway glare and property values should the road be built.