The bust-up of the Chino Agricultural Preserve and the impact the takeover of more than 88 percent of that property by the cities of Chino and Ontario is having was once again thrown into stark relief as the full parameters of a development project on ten acres of the former preserve property located in Chino is being publicly previewed.
In 1968, after San Bernardino County the previous year designated a significant portion of the Chino Valley for continuing agricultural use, the Chino Agricultural Preserve was formed under the auspices of California’s Williamson Act — a 1965 law that was intended to preserve California farmland and to serve as a hedge against urban sprawl. The law granted substantial tax breaks to property owners agreeing to restrict their land to agricultural uses for at least 10 years. By 1970, the Chino Valley was the source for most of Southern California’s milk as well as a major supplier of cheese for a much larger geographical area.
At its peak, the 17,000-acre preserve was host to just under 400 dairies and 400,000 cows. In 1976, the preserve was responsible of $800 million in dairy production.
The preserve continued as a thriving dairyland oasis in the midst of rapidly urbanizing Southern California until increasing land values and the relatively greater profitability of selling the land for development compared to continuing to use it for agricultural production induced more and more of the dairy owners to sell their land and move their herds and operations to Tulare and Merced counties.
While many dairymen wanted to continue their operations in place, by the late 1990s, enough of their colleagues in the dairy industry wanted out that the demise of the preserve was inevitable.
Many in Chino were pushing for Chino to lay claim to the entirety of the 15,200 acres that were yet contained within the preserve at that time. Instead, in 1999, Ontario annexed the lion’s share of the land – 8,200 acres – while Chino obtained 5,300 acres and Chino Hills took the remaining 1,700 acres.
The development of the property, much of it wide open as the dairies consisted primarily of pastureland with some barns and both traditional and more modern milling facilities, proceeded at a relatively modest pace over the next two decades, slowed somewhat during the economic downturn of 2007-to-2013.
In recent years the pace of development has picked up somewhat, with most of the land being transitioned into residences, primarily single-family homes.
Those developments include The Preserve, extending over 5,226 acres in southeast Chino, which was master developed by the Lewis Group of Companies, formerly known as Lewis Homes. Lewis, while no longer in the business of constructing home on its own, is using companies such Lennar, KB Homes and Century Communities to construct 8,100 homes and apartments on 1,155 acres, preserving for the time being other acreage as open space and utilizing other land for schools, parks, recreation centers and commercial development.
For its part, Ontario has pushed ahead with the development of Ontario Ranch, a mostly residential development with some commercial components.
Ontario also, in March 2022, gave approval to the South Ontario Logistics Center Specific Plan, which cleared the way for the development of 219.39 acres bordered by Eucalyptus Avenue to the north, Merrill Avenue to the south, the future extension of Campus Avenue to the west and Grove Avenue to the east. The land in question was owned primarily by the heirs to the dairies owned by the late Pete Borba. That property, while previously zoned to accommodate low- and medium-density residential homes and commercial centers or a large business park, was reevaluated by the City of Ontario at the request of the Borba family. Instead of what had been approved previously, Ontario adopted an amendment to its general plan which provided for a change in zoning on the property, modifying the land use element of the plan, allowing for the conversion of 71.58 percent of the 219 acres into what is primarily industrial uses, taking advantage of the availability of electricity from the existing power lines paralleling Edison Avenue.
On the Chino side of the divide, two years ago, Newport Beach-based Orbis Real Estate Partners acquired the 435,600 square foot parcel – ten acres – at the corner of South Euclid Avenue and Schaefer Avenue from Margaret Zivelonghi for $12,100,000, translating to a cost of $27.78 per square foot or $1.21 million per acre. While the vast majority of those living in the area were not aware of the transaction, who was involved in it and the sale’s implication, those who were more informed and sophisticated with regard to real estate and land development issues recognized that the price paid and other considerations such as zoning and pressure the State of California through its Department of Housing and Community Development is putting on cities throughout California to facilitate the creation of low income housing to ease the perceived housing crisis in the Golden State recognized that the property sooner rather than later was going to be developed to a greater degree of intensity than had other property in the general vicinity and within the agricultural preserve in general.
Residents living in proximity to the Euclid/Schaefer intersection have now been informed that Orbis, having formed a limited liability company, Orbis Schaefer, is pursuing the development of a four-story 273-unit apartment complex, accompanied by a five-story, 500 stall parking garage, 143,000 square-foot self-storage facility, and 18,600 square feet of retail space with 128 parking stalls contained entirely on the 10-acre site. At least 14 and as many as 22 of the units will rent in the affordable range, according to Orbis Schaefer.
Nearby residents are not pleased. The apartment complex will qualify as the densest development yet in the former agricultural preserve. While there are some apartments in Lewis’s Preserve development, they are leavened by the more numerous single-family homes that surround them. Chino faced a crowd of residents shouting questions over one another at a neighborhood meeting on Wednesday evening.
Warren Morelion, who is variously described as the City of Chino’s senior planner and as its development services director, is the focus of considerable anger vectored from the area’s residents, who feel he should not have allowed Orbis Schaefer to get tentative staff approval for undertaking. The density of the project exceeds by a factor of at least three any other residential use in Chino’s share of the former agricultural preserve, residents have asserted.
Morelion’s defense appears to be that the California Department of Housing and Community Development, in carrying out its survey of how many dwelling units should be built, or at least should be allowed to be built, in cities throughout the state in what is termed the Regional Housing Needs Assessment program, has determined that in the eight year period that began in 2021, Chino should have standards to allow for the construction of 6,961 dwelling units, of which 2,106 should be affordable to very low income renters and 1,281 should be affordable to low income renters.
By allowing Orbis Schaefer to proceed with the project, Chino is showing the state it is making a good faith effort to meet the state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment mandate, according to Morelion.
That’s just right, according to Jonathan E. Shardlow, a land use attorney of the law firm of Allen Matkins, which is representing Orbis Schaefer. Shardlow said Chin residents have no right to complain about the intensified density that is to take place in the Euclid Schaefer project, given that the City of Chino has a mixed-use overlay zone within its housing element, which Chino residents voted on and approved some years back. The former Zivelonghi property, by being developed to incorporate both apartments and retail uses will qualify as a mixed-use project, according to Shardlow. According to Shardlow, a mixed-use project is beyond reproach.
With a legal pit bull like Shardlow in Orbis Schaefer’s corner, people are afraid to speak out and criticize the city, its planning division, its land use decision-makers, its development services department, the project or Orbis Schaefer, since doing so might result in Shardlow, on behalf of Orbis Schaefer, filing a tortious interference lawsuit against any such complainants. A tortious interference suit would argue, essentially, that anyone getting in the way of the project would be interfering with Orbis Schaefer’s right to make a profit on its $12,200,000 investment in the property.
Morelion, who simply wants the project to be approved and everyone to shut up about it, has accused local residents of creating “chaos” by their protests relating to the proposal.
Grant Ross, one of the founders of Orbis Real Estate Partners, has stared down the opposition to the Orbis’s Chino venture, and people have the sense that he means business when he brings in a litigator such as Shardlow to intimidate the crowds whenever a community meeting or hearing about the project takes place.
A few intrepid people have spoken up, although they do not want their names used.
Some have said that if the city is going to let Orbis construct 273 units on that confined of a piece of ground and the justification for doing so is the state’s housing mandate, then all of them should be rented at affordable rates.
Another said that if the city is going to allow Orbis to build to four stories in height to achieve 273 units where it is predictable that there will be, on average at least two, and more likely three vehicles per unit, and a commercial center that will need to meet the parking needs of its customers, then Orbis should be required to provide parking structures to accommodate at least 1,000 cars. Another said those structures should be built underground.
While saying they wanted to stir up opposition to the project, residents said they were reluctant to do so openly and they warned the Sentinel that by writing anything about the project, unless the newspaper gave the project a glowing endorsement, it would be running a risk of being sued.
“This guy Ross and his henchman Shardlow are thugs,” one said.
The planning commission will consider the project in November or December, at which time it is anticipated its members – Jimmy Alexandris, Lissa Fraga, Brandon Blanchard, Kevin Cisneros, Steve Lewis, Vincent Lopez and Lawrence Vieira – will send a recommendation to the city council that the project be approved.
–Mark Gutglueck