Canyon Homes Run Expensive Risk of Cracks, Owners Find

There are gaping holes in the floors. The thick concrete foundation has been ripped out to expose underlying dirt. The walls have been stripped to the plywood, except for an occasional splash of bright bathroom wallpaper.

Toilets have been wrenched from the pipes.

The scene of destruction would be more appropriate among the rubble of Europe after World War II or in a documentary about Ground Zero at Hiroshima.

But the setting is the inside of a $250,000 condominium in one of San Diego’s richest neighborhoods, and it is the result of what can happen to a house built on, in or around the city’s canyons.

“You can be sinking straight down and you can be moving laterally,” said attorney John F. (Mickey) McGuire, who is representing a group of La Jollans whose homes have cracked foundations. “Sometimes you can do both.”

The number of cracking, shifting homes has become a major, multimillion-dollar headache in San Diego, where the demand for housing is high, say McGuire and others.

“The problem that we’re having now in San Diego County is all of the available ground that is safe and easy to build on has been built on,” said Brant C. Noziska, an attorney in McGuire’s firm. “So now, the developers are starting to go to higher risk areas--to canyons--to start to find available developing space.”

Building in a canyon is much different than building on the mesas, where all a developer had to do is to bulldoze a flat spot on the harder soil. Canyon development requires a technique called “cut and fill.”

To cut, the developer uses a bulldozer to level the top of a ridge or make notches in a hillside for building pads. These bulldozed building sites are relatively safe, attorneys say.

Fill sites are different. These are manufactured housing sites where a developer plugs a canyon or levels a parcel of land with dirt he has left over from a cut.

Building codes and state law require that a developer make sure the fill dirt he uses to plug a canyon is compacted tightly. For example, if laboratory tests show that fill dirt can be compressed to 100 pounds-per-cubic-foot, the builder must make sure it is at least 90%, or 90 pounds-per-cubic-foot, when he uses it in a canyon.

If he allows the compaction to drop below the 90% standard, the dirt may settle more than usual and pose a greater risk of cracking and shifting the foundations of housing built on it.

Where this has happened, homeowners have responded with a rash of lawsuits and insurance claims.

“Litigation in this area is just going nuts,” Noziska said. “We have two attorneys full-time involved in this and three paralegals that do nothing else. We are constantly picking up new litigations from anywhere from one home to 75 homes, and condo developments with 150 to 200 units.”

People living in 35 homes along Thunderhead Street in Los Penasquitos have sued GWC Development. Cracks, some 1 1/2-inches-wide and bisecting entire rooms, have appeared in the floors of their homes, which range in age from 5 to 7 years and overlook a canyon. The homes were built on bluffs, which had been cleared, then leveled with fill dirt. Residents are demanding the developers make repairs that cost as much as $230,000 for one house, said an attorney for the group.

Another case was recently settled involving 42 homes in a Tierrasanta neighborhood along Calle de Vida, a subdivision that was built on filled-in canyons. Developers Christiana Community Builders and Ponderosa Homes have agreed to pay $7.3 million to buy back the homes and reimburse homeowners for other expenses, such as moving costs.

In La Jolla, there is a legal fight over the cracks in foundations at the Mount La Jolla development, clusters of homes that hug Soledad Mountain Road. McGuire filed the suit in 1981 on behalf of the condo association.

To create the subdivision, developer Marview Investors Ltd. filled in canyons that were up to 70 feet deep before constructing the 243 condominiums between 1971 and 1975.

Now, repairmen are busy trying to make up for the settling dirt. Cosmetic repairs are scheduled for 125 condos, and an additional 70 units--more than one in four--require more drastic attention.

The foundations are faltering so badly in the 70 units that repairmen must drill 35 to40 holes in the floor of each condominium to pump a grout mixture into the ground. The grout will shore up the sagging part of the house, but not before the process causes more damage to buckling floors.

Then, concrete floors are torn out and walls stripped, leaving the inside of the condominiums looking like bomb craters before a new floor is poured and the finishes restored.

Repairs so far at Mount La Jolla have cost $3 million, McGuire said. It will cost another $6 million to $7 million to complete the work, he added.

Bruce Lorber, attorney for GWC Development, said the builder is trying to cooperate in the face-lift of the Penasquitos project. He said that in recent years, developers have improved how they build in fill areas.

“Nature still has a lot to do with it,” said Lorber about the shifting of land, especially after years of heavy rainfalls. “Water seems to be the key in almost every case you deal with.”

At least one insurance company is concerned enough about homeowner claims that it is taking a closer look at what’s happening in San Diego County. A State Farm spokesman said his company established a two-man task force last year to study so-called “subsidence” cases to see how prevalent are problems with canyon development.

But Noziska said there is no question the cracks and shifts will continue.

“That is going to be increasingly true as further development continues in the remaining open space,” he said. “The remaining open space is hilly, and hills will have canyons.”