San Juan Capistrano : Builder Told to Change Designs for New Homes

The developer proposing to build the largest planned community in San Juan Capistrano must modify some of its design plans for two residential tracts of 503 homes, the Planning Commission has ruled.

Lomas San Juan, the neighborhood of town homes and single-family residences being developed by GLENFED Development Corp., the Encino building arm of Glendale Federal Savings & Loan Assn., has been under review since February.

One tract up for approval includes 267 town houses on 55 acres; the other has 196 single-family homes and 40 town houses on 78 acres. The densities proposed for both neighborhoods are the maximum allowed by the city’s General Plan.

GLENFED submitted residential concept plans and tentative tract maps for the area at a meeting Tuesday night, but members of the Planning Commission opposed such design specifics as color of the dwellings, the appearance on the homes from the street and what they saw as potentially unsafe road curves.

The commission will reconsider modifications in design plans and hold a public hearing on the development Oct. 22.

Tom Tomlinson, Planning Commission secretary, said members of the panel opposed the developer’s plan to build the single-family homes at 35- and 45-degree angles to the street because “it wouldn’t create a pleasing effect and would appear as a mass of town houses and you wouldn’t see a separation of the units.”

He said the commission also rejected GLENFED’s proposal to paint the two-, three- and four-bedroom dwellings off-white and requested that they be “earth tones” to better blend into the hillside overlooking Capistrano Valley.

Tak Fujii, GLENFED’s project manager for Lomas San Juan, said: “We think they were very reasonable and . . . don’t foresee any problems making the changes. We like earth tones.” He said the company expects to begin grading on the planned community of homes--starting between $124,000 and $170,000--next spring.