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| A little under 200,000 acres remains undeveloped. |
At one time, Rancho Mission Viejo was one of three large ranches owned by the O’Neill family. In 1942, the Department of the Navy condemned "Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores" to establish Camp Joseph H. Pendleton. At the end of WWII, the two remaining ranches were combined under the name Rancho Mission Viejo and totaled 52,000 acres— all in South Orange County.
Since then, members of the O’Neill family have kept their land in family hands by balancing ranching and farming operations with thoughtful community development and land leasing.
In the early 1960s, under the leadership of Richard J. O’Neill and his nephew, Anthony R. Moiso, the family and its development partners established Mission Viejo. Twenty years later, the family founded Rancho Santa Margarita, followed in the 1990s by Las Flores. At the turn of the new century, the family and its development partners unveiled the new hometown of Ladera Ranch.
Over the past 50 years, the family has dedicated thousands of acres of open space encompassing regional parks, habitat preserves, ecological conservancies, miles of hiking trails, sports fields, and other recreational facilities. Today, about 85 percent of the original 200,000-acre Rancho remains undeveloped. Also, nearly half of the Ranch is devoted to cattle grazing. The balance of the land is dedicated to row crop, barley and citrus production and numerous land lease operations which include mineral extraction, wholesale nurseries, waste management, and research and development.
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