NEWS: Former Southern California Marine Base Sold for $1 Billion Dollars, page 1

A developer has payed $1 billion dollars for the site of the decommissioned El Toro Marine airbase. The developer plans to build 3,400 homes on the 3718 acre parcel of land. In addition, a huge tract of land will be set aside to become one of the biggest urban parks in the United States. The whole area will be a designed community.

www.cnn.com
IRVINE, California (AP) -- A giant homebuilder won an online auction of a former Marine base, agreeing to pay $1.05 billion for the Orange County tract once pegged for an airport.

Lennar Corp. will build 3,400 homes on part of the 3,718 acres, and another section of the land is slated to become one of the nation's largest urban parks. The rest will be used for retail centers and industrial parks, the Miami-based developer said.

The Marine Corps Air Station, El Toro, began operations during World War II and was closed in 1999. Some local officials had wanted to use the land for a commercial airport, but voters opted for the park in 2002.

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Thats alot of homes and the population will be estimated at 160,000 plus. My uncle lives in a planned city. Once you get past the requirements such as no cars parked in the streets unless they are visiting etc, its really not that bad. However, all this is assuming that the Navy cleans up all the toxic waste and I would hate to find out later that my high end house is sitting on some form of waste that escaped clean up.