Vanishing Vistas : Homeowners Take Dim View of New Neighbors Who Will Block Seascapes

For a dozen years, residents on Buccaneer Street in Dana Point have enjoyed magnificent ocean views and offshore winds that relieved them of the need for air conditioners even in the warmest weather.

But down the way, in the community of Laguna Niguel, developers are planning to build 190 single-family homes. That has given some of the folks on Buccaneer Street visions of vanished views and blocked breezes.

Opponents of the development went before the Board of Supervisors two weeks ago in an unsuccessful effort to stop the project or at least reduce it.

Frank Bott told the supervisors that “many of us moved to Dana Point for the purposes of health . . . the quality of life.” Now he finds a proposed development that will jam too many houses too close together, he said.

“I feel you’re my last hope,” Bott told the supervisors. “If you approve the development as planned . . . my view will be gone.”

Georgina Borman, another resident of Buccaneer Street, said the development would cost her part of the sweeping view from the second-floor deck of her house, a spectacle that includes San Clemente Island.

“I’ve watched the houses on Buccaneer be built,” she told the supervisors. “I’ve watched the deer and wildlife disappear.” She said she never expected “an anthill” to be built behind her home.

For the supervisors, the problem was not new, as they made clear to Bott, his wife and two other neighbors worried by the developer’s plans. The supervisors say people living in unincorporated areas of the county often come to them with complaints that developments are stealing their views of ridges or ocean ranging from a peek to a sweeping vista. The supervisors say there is little they can do because, in the words of one county official, “There’s no right to a view.”

Thomas F. Riley, chairman of the Board of Supervisors and whose district includes Laguna Niguel and Dana Point, said those complaints have been “constantly with us over the years.”

Supervisor Harriett Wieder has personal knowledge of the problem. When she moved into her Huntington Beach home, she had a wonderful view of the Pacific, she said. But “two years later, I didn’t know there was an ocean there” because new houses across the street wiped out any peek of the water.

The attachment of homeowners to their views is “incredibly emotional,” said Jim Wood, president of Unique Homes, a Corona del Mar real estate firm. Residents “just protect their views like their children, sometimes, I think, almost to the detriment of their community.”

Wood said trees that can dress up a community often are not planted or are cut back drastically to preserve a view. “It causes a lot of homeowner battles,” he said, because owners sometimes take neighbors to court to force them to trim trees.

Views add value to property, too, Wood said. “A home can sell for 350 (thousand dollars), and if it has a view, it will sell for 100 (thousand dollars) more.” That’s only a minimum, he added. If no roof lines interrupt the view, if it includes sparkling lights at night rather than mere blackness, if the harbor is visible, or if, in Newport Beach, the Balboa Pavilion can be seen, values soar.

Although Wieder cautioned that “the responsibility of government is not to protect peoples’ house values,” the Orange County Planning Commission sometimes requires a developer to prepare an analysis of what a project would do to neighbors’ views.

The commission asked developer David Stein for such an analysis of the Laguna Niguel project, said Timothy Neely of the county Environmental Management Agency.

Neely said county planners can ask for a panoramic photo of the area involved, with the new development superimposed on the snapshot, or more simply can compare the height of proposed buildings with existing homes.

In one case two years ago, Neely said, a development in Laguna Niguel adjoined a ravine that over the years had been filled in. When a developer wanted to build on the property, he was required to lower the whole plot five or 10 feet to protect views.

Project Scaled Down

Developer Stein said he has met with the Botts and others worried about the development, a part of an overall project known as Monarch Beach, to try to allay their concerns. County officials said Stein already has reduced the number of units planned.

The supervisors, other county officials and aides to Stein said they realized that people fall in love with their views and often forget they don’t have a legal right to them. That leaves supervisors with “a judgment call on issues we’re not responsible for,” he said.

Developers and county officials said zoning laws can help protect views, homeowners’ associations can adopt rules protecting views on their properties and the state Coastal Commission can control development within its jurisdiction, particularly the beachfront. But in most cases, it’s up to the buyer to beware, officials said.

Jack Liebster, a Coastal Commission official, said the act setting up the commission notes that the “scenic and visual qualities of coastal areas shall be considered and protected as a resource of public importance.”

But the commission’s guidelines specify that it must be concerned primarily with views from public areas such as roads, beaches or scenic points, not from private residences.

“What we’re saying is we want to stay out of neighbors’ disputes with one another over the question of a view,” Liebster said.

Neely of the county Environmental Management Agency said that “by and large, on projects adjoining existing developments, the county has taken the position that people who have purchased units have not purchased a guarantee to a view.”

Real estate agents have been known to tell potential buyers that no developments are planned next to their houses and their views will last forever, county supervisors said, claims that should be taken with a grain of salt.

Neely agreed, saying there “has to be some judgment used on the part of the buyer in figuring out whether it’s likely his view will be blocked by a subsequent phase of development. And there are no guarantees that can be offered.”

That’s what Bott and his neighbors found out two weeks ago.

Bott, 62, said developer Stein had offered him two years’ free membership in the Monarch Bay Club and had offered to extend a balcony so Bott could retain at least some of his view.

But Bott said he didn’t want money and he didn’t want membership in a club.

Bott said he is suffering from a lung disease, and “I just want the view I’ve got for the last few years I have.”