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Irvine Ranch developer Donald Bren, 78-year-old multibillionaire outdoorsman, and the Irvine Co., gave a rugged 20,000-acre tract of land (part of the original 94,000-acre Irvine Ranch) to Orange County. The gift completes the transfer of 50,000 acres for parks, greenways, and a recreational and regional preserve. More than half of that land had previously been donated to the public.

Bren‘s Irvine Co. developed the other 44,000 acres of the 94,000-acre Irvine Ranch, which was 1/5 of Orange County, to form retail, commercial, and suburban properties, while becoming one of the world’s largest and most emulated developers of planned communities.

The 20,000-acre parcel is an undeveloped landscape of native grasslands, steep canyons, and sycamore woodland. The tract is home to mountain lions, golden eagles, and dozens of rare and endangered species of plants and animals. The land has a Mediterranean climate that is characterized by coastal fog and dry, mild weather. Although Mediterranean climate zones occur on just 2% of the earth’s surface, they harbor 20% of all known plant species! The land is also a geological treasure, with the last 80 million years of earth’s history preserved intact in parts of the land.

The LATimes online article describes the funding to protect the land:

“The funding plan presented Tuesday by Mark Denny, director of Orange County Parks, includes $4 million from the Irvine Co. for management and capital improvements as well as a $1-million endowment for a scientific research center at UC Irvine. In addition, the Nature Conservancy is contributing $2 million.”

The donation was the single largest transfer of privately owned land to public property in the history of Orange County and increased parkland and open space protected land from 39,000 to 59,000 acres.

Albert Bennett, dean of the School of Biological Sciences at UC Irvine said that the land is “truly magnificent, a globally important ‘hotspot’ of biological diversity.”

The parkland is rare among similarly sized habitats in the United States in being so close to urban areas. The land is within a half-hour’s drive of over 3 million people.

The Irvine Ranch was named by the original owner, James Irvine, an Irish immigrant who had started a produce and grocery business in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. Irvine and his partners assembled the 94,000-acre ranch from Spanish and Mexican land grants.

See the LATimes online article for details about the location of the land and plans for its future.

-Bill at

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