Remap to Cost Planner Nordeck His Post : Redistricting: Newly drawn districts are expected to claim seat of Planning Commission chairman.

SANTA ANA — The county redistricting plan approved by supervisors four months ago has claimed its first major political casualty--the head of the Orange County Planning Commission.

Restaurateur Stephen A. Nordeck, chairman of the panel for the past two years, is expected to lose his commission seat next month because the newly drawn lines mean that he no longer lives in the district of Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, who appointed him.

Vasquez said Nordeck--who has come under occasional fire from environmentalists--has done “an exceptional job” as chairman. Vasquez added that he intends to name a new representative from his district in the next few weeks, probably in time for the commission’s first meeting of the new year on Jan. 14.

The plan for re-carving the county’s five supervisorial districts, approved in August, will also force out several members of other county commissions but none so powerful as Nordeck.

The five-member Planning Commission has broad authority for reviewing and approving new developments on county land, now focused primarily in South County. That role puts it at the center of development fights and has won it and its chairman mixed reviews from environmental groups and community activists.

“Steve is one of the commissioners who has tried the hardest to work things out,” said Pete DeSimone, manager of the National Audubon Society’s Starr Ranch Sanctuary who has challenged the commission over several development projects. “He’s easy to get along with and he’s tried hard, although we’re certainly not altogether satisfied with the results.”

Apart from the post of county supervisor, the Planning Commission chairmanship is seen as one of the most influential in county government, with its decisions rarely reversed by the Board of Supervisors. As a result, the 50-year-old Nordeck has often found himself in the public eye.

It was Nordeck who helped engineer the widely lauded plan approved last week by the supervisors for development of the Trabuco Canyon area.

But it was also Nordeck who was criticized--but ultimately cleared by the Orange County district attorney of conflict-of-interest charges--over a political dinner held at his Trabuco Canyon restaurant.

The 1990 dinner was held in support of the state Assembly campaign of Peter von Elten and was attended by some local developers who had projects pending before the Planning Commission. As a result, some activists--and county officials--questioned the appearance of impropriety by Nordeck and fellow commissioner Roger D. Slates in taking part in it.

Some critics viewed the dinner as evidence that planning commissioners were too close to the developers whom they were supposed to be monitoring.

Nordeck said the controversy over the dinner marked the low point in his three years on the Planning Commission.

“Being dragged through the papers for three months was a little uneasy,” Nordeck said. “But I’m a big boy and have been in politics for a while, so I realize you can’t make everybody happy.”

While the investigation was a difficult time for Nordeck, he is concluding his tenure with the widely praised completion of a growth plan for the Trabuco Canyon area. That plan underwent more than 50 public hearings and three years of debate before being approved by the Board of Supervisors last week.

The result--a plan that county officials called the most restrictive in local history--won Nordeck praise even from some in the environmental community who had blasted the commission.

“It’ll be too bad to see him go. It was due to his tenacity that we succeeded in Trabuco Canyon,” said Bruce Conn, who was active in the debate as a director of the Rural Canyon Conservation Fund.

“Absent Steve, there never would have been the dialogue that led to the agreement we had,” Conn said, adding that Nordeck was often willing to tour sites in the canyon and make himself available to local residents.

Environmental and community groups were more critical of another plan passed during Nordeck’s tenure, the 1,000-acre Las Flores Planned Community, a Santa Margarita Co. project to be built near Mission Viejo.

South County environmentalists are suing the county over the plan and charged that the Planning Commission had a “pro-development” bias, but DeSimone and others said they were nonetheless impressed by Nordeck’s role in the debate.

Dan Kelly, vice president for governmental relations at the Santa Margarita Co., also praised Nordeck.

“Steve has been a fine commissioner,” Kelly said. “I’ve always found him to be open-minded and fair, and no one could accuse him of not listening to all sides.”

By law, the county redraws its electoral district lines once every 10 years in order to balance population changes that are reflected in the U.S. Census.

Similarly, the redistricting plan cost then-Planning Commission chairman Charlotte Mousel her seat in 1984 after the 1980 census lines were put into effect and resulted in her home’s ending up in a different district. This time, Nordeck’s Coto de Caza home was redistricted from Vasquez’s 3rd District into Supervisor Thomas F. Riley’s 5th District.

Riley said he is “comfortable” with his current appointee, Thomas Moody, adding that “I have no plans to change.”