San Clemente may buy property in effort to thwart a route for the proposed 241 Toll Road extension

San Clemente could soon buy 10 acres of undeveloped region off Avenida Pico and Calle Del Cerro, which metropolitan officials said they hope could outwit one of the most contentious options proposed for extending the 241 Toll Road.

A homeless advocacy group, Emergency Shelter Coalition, has been trying to purchase the property but faces opposition. So the city submitted its own offer to the Rancho San Clemente Business Park Community Association to buy the land if the escrow descends through, Mayor Dan Bane said.

A representative of the coalition said it could decide within the month whether to withdraw from the escrow, paving the way for the city’s bid.

” We meditate $20,000 would be money well spent ,” Bane said. The bloc had offered $19,500 for the property.

The property is near a passage Orange County’s toll road agencies could use to extend State Route 241 to connect to the 5 Freeway at Avenida Pico.The option is one of 10 the agencies are considering for extending the toll road or otherwise improving traveling in south county.

If the city buys the country, it would make a clause in the deed to preserve the owned as open space, Bane said. That stipulation would require the toll road agencies to startle through more hoops if they want to use eminent domain to acquire the tract, even if the city sold the quality in the future, he said.

” It doesn’t say it can’t be done ,” Bane said.” But it requires a much higher showing and justification for taking the property, as opposed to any other regular patch .”

Officially referred to as a management easement, the city has been putting the same stipulation on the use of other nearby owneds, such as the area around St. Andrew’s by-the-Sea United Methodist Church, Bane said.

Bane said the agencies have a” very narrow strip of the region they can build on” if they want to pursue the 241 extension using the Avenida Pico alternative. Having easements in place along that strip could involve the agencies’ programme, he said.

Transportation Corridor Agencies spokeswoman Sarah King said any and all of the superhighway options are” essentially concepts and general threads on a planned” and placement could be nipped in the future.

But Bane said even if TCA withdraws the Avenida Pico alternative, the property is still worth buying.” Citizens in local communities determined it aware that open space is important .”

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Read more: ocregister.com.