San Clemente: Home Builders’ Latest Frontier
For years, San Clemente has been Orange County’s forgotten child, a sleepy beach town cuddling up to the coast, a freeway stop halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego that lacked the glitz of Newport Beach or the glamour of Laguna Beach.
Even as other parts of south Orange County were doubling and tripling in population during the early ‘70s, San Clemente grew slowly, maintaining its village-by-the-sea character, with new construction largely confined to the small area between the San Diego Freeway and the coast.
But suddenly, this town of Marines, senior citizens, beach bums and moderately wealthy suburban families is bursting at the seams. Orange County’s growth wave has finally reached its southernmost city--and a number of the city’s residents fear the consequences.
Grading Operations
Millions of cubic yards of dirt have already been moved in grading operations on 7,000 acres of hitherto untouched rolling ranchland--known locally as the backcountry--and houses are going up at a rate that would double the city’s developed territory and its population of 31,000 in little more than a decade.
Present plans call for nearly 15,000 houses and condominiums to be built in the next 10 to 15 years. More than 1,600 residential building permits have been issued so far this year--a record 816 of those coming last month as builders scrambled to obtain permits before they are required to pay hefty fees to help underwrite local freeway construction.
The steady southerly suburban sprawl, low interest rates, a strong economy, the freeway fees, concentrated land ownership and a backlog of demand because of an 18-month building moratorium imposed in January of 1981 have all contributed to the unprecedented boom. The city fathers say they are leading the town to economic salvation, but a vocal segment of its residents think they are leading it to ruin.
‘It’s Too Much’
“Whole hills are being knocked out overnight,” said Tom Lorch, an engineer who, with local dentist Brian Rice, has written an initiative that seeks to slow the building boom. “It’s too much--it’s overwhelming the community. They are turning this city into one we moved here to get away from, not the San Clemente that we know and love.”
Nineteen percent of the city’s voters signed petitions in favor of the Lorch-Rice initiative, forcing the city to call a special election for Feb. 25 on the issue. The initiative, if approved, would place a limit of 500 units a year on backcountry development, with the building permits to be allocated on a point system based on a number of design and public welfare criteria.
The four backcountry developers--Costa Mesa-based Western Saving & Loan Assn., the Santa Margarita Co., Estrella Properties of Newport Beach and John D. Lusk & Sons--and a majority of the City Council, however, believe that growth is the best way for the city to avoid future budget problems. San Clemente’s overburdened street system and undermanned city staff--the police force, for example, ranks last in the county in the ratio of sworn officers per 1,000 residents, according to City Manager James B. Hendrickson--can only be improved by an infusion of new money, most council members say. And they dismiss criticism as unfounded emotionalism.
“This is a town on the move, and people don’t know how to react,” said Mayor Robert Limberg, a retired businessman who, as senior vice president of Rossmoor Corp., was instrumental in building Leisure World in Laguna Hills. “They see things going on, and they don’t understand what they’re looking at.”
Council Takes Action
The City Council, in fact, took such a dim view of the managed-growth initiative, as Rice and Lorch call it, that it placed its own initiative--essentially an outline of the city’s General Plan--on the special election ballot. To do so, council members summoned Limberg, who had not attended the meeting and was resting at home, to come down and break a tie vote.
The council also decided to list its initiative first on the ballot, ahead of the one signed by 4,000 people over a two-month period.
Such bickering is not new to San Clemente. Even the city’s founder, Ole Hanson, a former Seattle mayor who began selling subdivisions in his Spanish seaside village 60 years ago, battled in the 1920s with builders who wanted to deviate from the town’s strict white-walls-and-tiled-roofs policy. More recently, the city endured several years of political turmoil as the late ‘70s were marked by council recall elections, staff resignations and firings. Often, the divisive issue was growth, as developers drew up plans to build on their backcountry acres. Finally, in 1981 the city declared a moratorium on backcountry building--one that was not lifted until July, 1982--to give itself time to revise its General Plan.
“We spent hundreds of hours revising that plan, because we weren’t ready for the kind of development they were talking about,” Limberg said. “The new plan contains standards that never before existed.”
Density Limit
Among those was a density limit of 1.5 to 2 housing units per acre, far less than the existing city’s 7 units per acre. The plan also allows the city to require that developers pay for any additional infrastructure that may be necessary, such as new roads, sewer expansion, lighting, parks or even a freeway on-ramp, City Planner Steve Flint said.
A new grading ordinance and tougher hillside development standards also were adopted to preserve the backcountry’s natural ridgelines and to prevent property-damaging slides.
The council’s ballot initiative, based on the General Plan, also requires that each development have a positive net fiscal impact on the city before a specific plan for the project is approved.
But the specific plan for one development, the Talega Valley project, was recently given preliminary approval by the Planning Commission even though a city-contracted computer analysis showed that the development would cost the city money in the long run. Richard Reese, senior vice president of the Santa Margarita Co., which is developing Talega Valley, criticized the computer model used in the study and said he would produce other data that reached a different conclusion.
Planner’s Comment
San Clemente senior planner Jim Barnes, however, said “the methodology used in the computer model is sound.” The same model was used in earlier studies that indicated the backcountry projects, including Talega Valley, would have a positive impact, but the developer’s plans have changed since then, Barnes said.
If the City Council approves the specific plan as is, it would be violating a key provision of the General Plan and its own initiative.
City officials say San Clemente can ill afford a drain on its treasury.
“San Clemente is not well-balanced because we’re a bedroom community,” Limberg said. “Only 40% of our revenue is from stable sources--property and sales taxes. In a healthy city, that figure should be 60%. If this city were to freeze (development) today, it would not have any opportunity to offer better services. In fact, we might have to downgrade.”
The current surge in building fees is subsidizing about 16% of the cost of services to the existing city. Over the long run, growth advocates are banking on development attracting light industry, retail business and tourism to the city.
A 300-acre business park is included in plans for the 1,943-acre Rancho San Clemente project, where a major fast-food chain is considering placing its national headquarters. Three hotels totaling 750 rooms are planned for the Lusk Co.’s 253-acre Marblehead Coastal project, where half a million visitors annually are expected to parade through the planned Richard Nixon Presidential Library. The company also is developing a Marblehead Inland project on 762 acres. The 3,510-acre Talega Valley development and the 1,919-acre Forster Ranch projects, which have not yet been approved by the City Council, will add another 120 acres of commercial space to the city’s tax base.
If all the planned commercial space is built, 6,000 permanent new jobs are expected to be created.
Fears Expressed
City officials say that by limiting developers’ building permits, the managed-growth initiative would force builders to abandon plans to build housing at all price levels in favor of building only the most expensive, highest-profit houses. The resulting smaller, more upscale population would be more inclined to work and shop outside San Clemente, hurting the city’s chances of attracting new businesses, they say.
The fact that the slow-growth petitions have been circulated has discouraged some businesses considering buying space in Rancho San Clemente, said Steve Maloney, division manager of Western Savings & Loan’s development company. He said that Toshiba America Inc., which was thinking of moving its U.S. headquarters to the development’s business park, has backed out.
“Home builders are pioneers; (most other) businesses aren’t,” Maloney said. “They’re not going to move into an area that may become stagnant.”
The slow-growth forces often point to neighboring San Juan Capistrano as a city that has successfully adopted a growth-limiting ordinance. However, San Juan Capistrano Mayor Phillip Schwartze said the city has never had to use the 1976 ordinance, which limits construction of tract homes to 400 a year. San Juan Capistrano quadrupled in size between 1970 and 1975, and adopted a whole range of measures to preserve the city’s agricultural and historical character.
“It’s not just the number (of homes)--the staff, City Council and General Plan all have to be in synch,” Schwartze said.
Vote Requirement Decried
And requiring a citywide vote to change the 500-home yearly limit that the managed-growth initiative would impose in San Clemente “is a dumb way to run a government,” Schwartze said.
Lorch and Rice both say their initiative will “put teeth” into the General Plan and allow the city to shape development to fit its needs. Besides, Lorch said, standing outside his hilltop home: “San Clemente cannot solve the housing needs of Southern California. Why should you have low-cost housing in the most desirable place to live? We spent two years in Tustin to be able to afford the down payment here.”
Councilman Scott Diehl, a veterinarian and staunch advocate of growth, said the Lorch-Rice initiative will turn San Clemente into “an elitist community.”
“We can offer a community that’s more enjoyable to live in than Fullerton or Anaheim . . . with housing for senior citizens, first-time home-buyers and laborers,” Diehl said, adding that this would not be the case if the initiative were approved.
Lorch and Rice dispute the elitism charge, saying that San Clemente simply is not ready for an influx of 3,000 new residents a year. “The developers are carrying the city now, but will they still be here 20 years down the road when the fees dry up? What is this city going to look like then? We’re the ones who will have to maintain what’s left when they leave,” Lorch said.
