San Juan Capistrano : County Sued Over OK of Caspers Research Lab

For the second time in as many days, the county was sued Thursday for approving a development allegedly without giving sufficient consideration to a project’s environmental impact.

The Fund for Environmental Defense and one of its members, Charlotte Clarke, asked that last month’s decision by the Board of Supervisors, approving a biochemical research facility on privately owned land surrounded by the Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park, be overturned.

The Nichols Institute, headquartered in San Juan Capistrano, originally was granted permission to build the facility on a 101-acre parcel in 1981, when the park was smaller.

That original permit expired. By the time the institute requested a new one last year, the land was surrounded by the park, which has grown to 7,500 acres.

Clarke was one of numerous witnesses who unsuccessfully urged the county Planning Commission to deny the proposed buildings because of their impact on the wilderness region off Ortega Highway, east of San Juan Capistrano.

A week after receiving Planning Commission approval, the 23-building project was approved by the supervisors last Dec. 17.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court argued that the project violates state environmental laws.

The same argument was used in a suit filed Wednesday that sought to overturn the supervisors’ approval last month of an expanded residential development known as Portola Hills in the El Toro area.