New Portola Hills Homes Would 'Seriously Impact Quality of Life' in Lake Forest

Jim Gardner, a Lake Forest resident, sent Lake Forest Patch the following letter to the editor. Go here to read the report referenced.

Developers want to build 900+ new dwelling units with some 3,000 new residents as well as 10,000 square feet of commercial space in an undeveloped area in Portola Hills.

The City hired RBF consulting to examine environmental issues and RBF issued a report on June 14, 2012. This report looks more closely at sections 4.14 (“Public Services”) 4.16 (“Transportation/Traffic”).

In their June 2012 report, RBF Consulting considered a number of issues that impact the City of Lake Forest if they approve the Portola Center project.

Among the issues under study were “Population and Housing” (4.13), “Public Services” (4.14), and “Transportation/Traffic” (4.16).

Upon further investigation, the RBF report failed to adequately address these areas.

Specifically, the report ignored the current usage patterns for post offices, DMV, and court services, failed to address the usage problem for libraries, and ignored many substantial traffic problems in the city.

When these issues are examined more thoroughly, it appears that current public services and traffic patterns in the city of Lake Forest are already at the breaking point, and the addition of 3,000 people and 2,000+ cars would seriously impact the quality of life.

Unless these problems are solved, further population growth for the city should be curtailed.

The RBF report asked the question: “Would the project result in substantial adverse physical impacts associated with the provision of new or physically altered governmental facilities, need for new or physically altered governmental facilities, the construction of which could cause significant environmental impacts, in order to maintain acceptable service ratios, response times or other performance objectives for any of the public services.”

Under this topic the report examined Fire, Police, Schools, Parks, and “Other Public Facilities.” Under the later heading they considered only library services.

They ignored several significant public services – post office, DMV, and court – which are used by tens of thousands of people and are integral to the wellbeing of any community.

The post office on Raymond Way is often overcrowded and waits for service can be 15 minutes or more. In addition, during certain times of the day the parking facilities are inadequate and people are forced to park in residential areas. [See photo.]

Lake Forest residents use the DMV located in Laguna Hills. This branch of the DMV is notorious for the long wait to get inside the building, much less get services once you are inside. [See photo.]

Lake Forest residents use the Superior/Small Claims Court located in Laguna Hills. Waits to get into the building for the morning session can be as long as 30 minutes given the screening that is required. Parking is difficult. One can rarely park in the designated parking lot and even the overflow parking lot is full during the day. [See photo.]

Ignoring these three substantial public services means that the RBF report does not address this issue in an adequate way. In addition, the report did not look at several issues concerning the library.

Parking at the library on Raymond Way can be problematic, and several times a day people are required to park in the adjacent commercial area since the lot is full. [See photo.]

In addition, the existing computers are almost always fully used and people who want to have access to the computer often have to wait. Since the lookup system is computer based, this can be a serious problem.

The RBF report deals almost exclusively with traffic in and around the Portola Center area. However, the addition of 2,000+ cars means that traffic everywhere will be impacted.

The main areas of significance are the entrances/exits to Rte. 5 on El Toro, Lake Forest, and Bake.

In addition, no consideration has been given to the creation of the Great Park in Irvine, which will be approached through several streets such as Trabuco Road and Portola Parkway. Many residents from Rancho Santa Margarita and Mission Viejo will use Lake Forest to get to the Great Park rather than going to the 5 Freeway.

In conclusion, the RBF report on the Portola Project is inadequate in two of the areas examined by this report. The report should be revised. Right now, at least with respect to the two areas studied, it appears that the city of Lake Forest has significant problems in the areas of access to public services and traffic, and that further population growth should be curtailed.