A Trail in Exchange for a School

’s “ambitious” pursuit to build out the school’s campus does not include, in the eyes of city officials, an equally aggressive plan to give the city a trail easement along Trabuco Creek, a requirement set forth in a 6-year-old agreement.

This perception may slow the school's efforts to finshing building its campus on Oso Road, just across the street from on Camino Capistrano.

An easement would give the public the right to access the trail, which traverses Saddleback’s property and generally follows . A temporary trail has been in place there for a few years now, accessible to equestrians, hikers and the like, but portions of it eroded when the creek overflowed in.

The construction of a two-story building for classrooms, and at some point in the more distant future, a gym, hinges on the school’s ability to adhere to the terms of a settlement agreement. It requires Saddleback to either bring the trail up to snuff or forge a new one.

The trail is a “huge missing link as far as we’re concerned to get from point A to point B in our ,” said Open Space Committee member Kenneth Hart. “What is the school going do to remedy that?”

In November, Saddleback requested from the city extensions to meet other terms of the settlement agreement. The agreement gives time frames for the new school's three-phase construction project (the first phase is already complete). There are deadlines to file permits, complete construction of the second and third phases and remove temporary modular classrooms from its property.

Although the Great Recession had put on hold the school's plans to finish phases two and three, "the current debt markets have created an opportunity for us to refinance our debt and access the funds necessary to move forward," school President Bruce A. Harbin wrote in a letter to the city Nov. 9. "Therefore, we look ambitiously toward processing, permitting and building phase two as early as next summer."

Open Space Committee members reviewed the plans Monday but said they also needed a proposal from Saddleback about how it would address the creek easement before recommending approval to construct the classrooms and gym.

School administrators said they're in limbo with the state Department of Fish and Game, which has yet to respond to it application to stabilize the eroded trail. "I am not the one who caused the flood," said Vice President Edward J. Carney. "We tried to do everything we could to get it fixed as soon as we could, but it didn’t work."

Hart said the trail has been a point of contention for years, because it was never built to standards of the county—which identifies it on its own trail network—and therefore never accepted by the city as being completed.

"Why would we say now, 'Put it back to the way it was and go ahead and continue your development'?" he said. "No one is faulting the applicant for the 100-year flood that ravaged our creek bed ... but at the same time, there was a condition of approval required of the school to construct and then deed to the city a trail."