Nonprofit hopes to buy ranch

Costa Mesa resident Terry Welsh spends a lot of time thinking about where the money might come from to buy Banning Ranch, one of the last undeveloped chunks of coastal land in Orange County.

Welsh and other volunteers who want to see the land preserved are up against a team of experienced land developers who want to build shops, homes and a hotel on part of the land.

“We know we’re not up against fools — we’re up against people who know what they’re doing and get paid for their time, and we’re just volunteers,” Welsh said.

A pathologist at an Anaheim hospital by day, he also heads up the Banning Ranch Conservancy, a nonprofit that hopes to shore up the millions it would take to buy the land and preserve it as parks and open space.

Welsh has spent the last 10 years lobbying to preserve the ranch, roughly 400 acres dotted with oil wells between Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and the Santa Ana River.

Newport Banning Ranch LLC, a consortium of three land owners, wants to build 1,375 homes, shops and a hotel on Banning Ranch. The developer has estimated it would cost between $30 million and $60 million to clean up the land after years of oil production. Under the development plan, about 70% of the land would be preserved as open space.

“We have an uphill battle ahead of us and we really need more people to help us,” Welsh said.

The conservancy hopes some of the money might come from county Measure M dollars. Orange County voters approved the measure in 1990 to allocate sales tax money to transportation projects. Some Measure M money goes to fund buying chunks of land for preservation in the county.

The conservancy has applied to the Orange County Transportation Authority to get a chunk of the more than $200 million Measure M dollars that are up for grabs and expects to hear back “in months rather than years,” whether or not the project makes the cut, Welsh said.

Even if the Banning Ranch Conservancy gets a cut of Measure M money, it won’t pay for all of Banning Ranch.

“We don’t expect this to pay for the whole of Banning Ranch, but it could be seed money,” Welsh said.

A pricing study commission by Newport Beach found the land could cost anywhere from $184 million to $211 million.

The city could get a discount of 25% for buying the land all at once, reducing the price to anywhere from $138 million to $158 million, the study found.

Newport Banning Ranch prices the land even higher than that.

Extensive work needs to be done to clean up some 500 oil wells that have been drilled on the land over the course of roughly 60 years, the developer claims. The millions of dollars it will take to restore the land would be the responsibility of the land developers if their plans move forward.

Mike Mohler, a project manager for Newport Banning Ranch puts the cost of the land, including the cost of cleaning up the site after decades of oil production, at $233 million, he said. “The problem is, you can’t acquire it without cleaning it up — state law requires the property be cleaned up,” Mohler said.

“It would lower the price to nearly $200 million, [without clean up]. But the problem you’ve got then is no one would acquire the property without being cleaned up first.”

Newport Banning Ranch also has applied for Measure M money to preserve about 80 acres of the land, Mohler said.

Most of the money to buy Banning Ranch would likely come from private donors, Welsh said.

“We live in the richest city in the richest county in the richest state in one of the richest countries in the world, so it’s not impossible,” Welsh said.

Banning Ranch Facts

 Banning Ranch is owned by Newport Banning Ranch, a consortium of three land owners, Aera Energy, Cherokee Investment Partners and Brooks Street.

 Newport’s General Plan makes acquiring Banning Ranch as open space as priority.

 There are about 100 active oil wells on Banning Ranch.

 Banning Ranch is home to several protected wildlife species, including the California gnatcatcher and the coastal cactus wren.