Mission Viejo Co

One of Orange County's pioneer developers of planned communities, the Mission Viejo Co., will be sold to J.F. Shea Co., an expanding Southern California building firm, it was announced Friday. The deal is expected to fetch more than $400 million, although terms were not disclosed by Philip Morris Cos. Inc., which has owned the Mission Viejo Co. since 1972. Shea will acquire about 900 acres of undeveloped land in Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo, and 3,600 acres in Colorado.

Rancho Mission Viejo Co. will unveil a preliminary development proposal today for the last large parcel of privately owned open space in south Orange County, angering environmentalists who had expected to be in on the planning from the start.

Plans for a long-awaited stadium for Mission Viejo's Trabuco Hills High School--which now shares a football stadium with three other high schools--may again be delayed because the Mission Viejo Co. has joined forces with neighbors who do not want the complex near their homes.

The City Council agreed this week to pay the Nature Reserve of Orange County $30,800 for the removal of costal sage scrub along El Toro Road. The completion of designs to widen El Toro Road requires the removal of 26,850 feet of scrub, considered an endangered habitat by the Nature Reserve. The Mission Viejo Co. is equally responsible for the ultimate widening of El Toro Road and has paid the city $15,400.

Long before the red tile roofs of Mission Viejo sprawled across southern Orange County's foothills, the community took shape on a mass of blueprints and photographs prepared by the fledgling Mission Viejo Co. In those days, the company consisted of three executives, a bookkeeper and a secretary, and it grew up with warm community support. But today, that support is being tested as Mission Viejo grows more independent from the company that built it.

After years of searching for sites for new facilities in fast-growing South County, three religious organizations have recently purchased land from the Mission Viejo Co. Temple Beth El, the Catholic Diocese of Orange and the Mormon Church have all closed escrow on property in the planned community of Aliso Viejo within the last two months, said Mission Viejo Co. spokeswoman Wendy Wetzel. Several other churches are negotiating with the company, Wetzel added.

As part of its ongoing plan to strip down internal operations and hire outside talent to do much of the work that staff employees had been doing, Mission Viejo Co. is releasing its four top planners in December. All four have landed on their feet, signing on with Culbertson, Adams and Associates Inc. The Aliso Viejo consulting company specializes in land planning, major project management, state environmental quality act compliance and environmental analysis.

As the state Department of Fish and Game began an inquiry Thursday into a developer's clearing of about 85 acres that may be environmentally sensitive, City Manager Fred Sorsabal said he authorized the work. "It is my opinion that what they did was OK," Sorsabal said Thursday night at a special meeting held by the Planning Commission before a crowd of angry residents. "They've been doing it on the south side of the road for 20 years."

An Orange County planning commissioner may have violated California's conflict-of-interest law by voting on matters affecting a major development company within one year after he accepted $365 worth of free golfing privileges, meals and theater and sports tickets from the firm, records show. County documents reviewed by The Times show that Planning Commissioner C. Douglas Leavenworth voted eight times in 1988 on land-use matters affecting the development plans of the Mission Viejo Co.

After 25 years of shaping South County's largest planned community, the Mission Viejo Co.'s job is almost finished. In 1965, when Mission Viejo was 10,000 acres of rolling green hills and cattle ranches in rural Orange County, people began lining up to pay around $21,000 for yet-unbuilt luxury tract homes. Some families camped overnight for a chance to buy into the planned community. About 28,000 homes and 75,000 residents later, Mission Viejo Co.

Residents who buy new homes in one area near the proposed airport at the El Toro Marine base will be unable to sue or demand soundproofing to reduce airplane noise under an agreement approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors. The board voted unanimously for so-called avigation easements that pave the way for Mission Viejo Co. to build 1,800 housing units in a section of Aliso Viejo that has been vacant for 20 years.

On a Saturday morning in 1986, a group of residents gathered in a South County coffee shop, plotting insurrection. They were fed up with Orange County government, tired of having land-use decisions dictated to them, sick of driving 25 miles to the county seat in Santa Ana only to be, they felt, ignored. Their solution was radical for the time: cityhood. As Mission Viejo celebrates its 10th year of incorporation today, the experiment with independence seems to be working.

It was a deliciously ironic bit of marketing genius. Somebody in the Mission Viejo Co., a subsidy of tobacco giant Phillip Morris, decided the squeaky-clean image of a swim team would help boost sales in their upscale planned community during the early 1970s. Lithe young men and women, disciplined, disinfected and sculpted by churning through several miles in a pool every day was an enticing image to potential home buyers with flower-generation kids.

J.F Shea Co., the Walnut-based building firm, has agreed to purchase Mission Viejo Co., one of Orange County's pioneer developers of planned communities, it was announced Friday. The deal is expected to fetch more than $400 million, although terms were not disclosed by Philip Morris Cos., which has owned Mission Viejo Co. since 1972. The purchase will give Shea about 900 acres of undeveloped land in the Orange County communities of Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo.

One of Orange County's pioneer developers of planned communities, the Mission Viejo Co., will be sold to J.F. Shea Co., an expanding Southern California building firm, it was announced Friday. The deal is expected to fetch more than $400 million, although terms were not disclosed by Philip Morris Cos. Inc., which has owned the Mission Viejo Co. since 1972. Shea will acquire about 900 acres of undeveloped land in Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo, and 3,600 acres in Colorado.

These are the venues that are often taken for granted. They may not be perfect, but they are certainly rich in character, style or story. If they're not the best facilities available for Orange County high school athletic programs, they're certainly not the worst. Swimming and Diving Mission Viejo Swimmers and divers who have competed in these waters are among the finest in their sports.

A mammoth, 850-unit apartment and condominium complex proposed by the Mission Viejo Co. may test the developer's nearly unblemished record for getting projects approved in this planned community. In the past, the Mission Viejo Co. has held all the cards--courtesy of a development agreement signed with the county just months before a cityhood election in 1987. The agreement meant that the developer had all the necessary approvals to proceed with projects listed in the pact.

The Board of Supervisors delayed action Tuesday on a request by the Mission Viejo Co. to lift a ban on residential development in a portion of Aliso Viejo located six miles south of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The area, near the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, has been off-limits to housing for nearly 20 years because of jet noise from military aircraft flying overhead. The Mission Viejo Co.

Mission Viejo Co., one of Southern California's pioneer developers of master-planned communities, is for sale. Tobacco and food giant Philip Morris Cos., Mission Viejo's parent since 1972, has hired New York investment banker Morgan Stanley Realty to market the company that developed the communities of Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo. The company now owns a total of 13,000 acres, but the bulk of its residential land holdings is in the Denver area.