Judge OKs Biomedical Facility for Caspers Park

Rejecting a challenge from environmentalists, a judge cleared the way Friday to build a 23-building biomedical facility on a 100-acre site surrounded by Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary L. Taylor ruled that county supervisors had based last December’s approval of the project on substantial evidence and complied with all environmental laws.

Construction could begin by midsummer on the Nichols Institute facility. The Nichols firm performs medical tests, according to a company spokesman.

Appeal Decision Pending

No decision has been made on an appeal, according to Rachel B. Hooper, a San Francisco-based lawyer for the Fund for Environmental Defense, which sued to block the project.

Opponents said the facility would be disruptive because of helicopter and traffic noise and argued that the project would not fit in with the natural environment of the park. Nichols, which employs 1,100 people, has its headquarters in San Juan Capistrano.

The institute obtained a two-year conditional use permit in 1981, but because of problems that included obtaining water for the property, the permit expired. The facility was planned for land at the junction of Ortega Highway and Lucas Canyon Road, next to the wilderness park.

Later the park expanded to include 2,000 more acres across the highway, effectively surrounding the institute site.

At a hearing earlier this week, a lawyer for Nichols said design changes would make the buildings mesh with natural surroundings and “virtually disappear.” While the size of the project grew, it was decentralized to provide two dozen smaller buildings rather than a dominant structure, and building heights were reduced.

Hooper said the design changes were so great that county supervisors were required by state law to order a new environmental impact report. Such a new EIR would have meant a new opportunity for public comment and hearings.

But Taylor ruled that the county properly decided that the changes were not substantial, and that an addendum to the first EIR was sufficient.