County Seeks Views on Redevelopment Plans for Capistrano Beach

Armed with a consultant’s report showing that redevelopment is feasible in Capistrano Beach, Orange County supervisors Tuesday directed planners to review options with residents of the unincorporated seaside community.

“To date the feasibility study has been largely a technical matter, one of looking at the area for its economic potential,” said George Britton, senior planner in the county Environmental Management Agency’s project planning division.

“Now that we have that technical information, the board has directed us to see how much support or opposition there is to the plans in the community,” Britton said.

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose south county district includes Capistrano Beach, asked staff members to consult with community groups, make area residents aware of the proposals and report back in 60 days.

Mixed Uses Proposed

The proposals include plans for mixed commercial and residential uses for an area that is now set aside for mobile home parks, as well as turning a mix of residential, commercial and vacant property into a high-density residential area.

Tentative plans call for turning a vacant parcel next to railroad tracks near San Juan Creek into an “industrial garden park.” A strip known as Doheny Village, a quasi-downtown area straddling Doheny Park Road, would become the Central Doheny District. The eastern half of the proposed redevelopment area would be divided among commercial-residential centers, high-density residential areas and open space and public areas.

Capistrano Beach is a quaint mix of seaside shanties, low-rent trailer parks and a commercial-industrial strip next to expensive homes with million-dollar ocean bluff views immediately south of Dana Point. The community has long been viewed by the county as an area ripe for commercial development.

It also has been eyed by San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano, both eager to annex an area that could increase their tax bases.

Capistrano Beach is battling a plan by the City of San Juan Capistrano to annex a 12.4-acre parcel where a shopping center is planned. Community leaders view it as the potential loss of the last large commercially zoned property in the community.

Annexation Up for Vote

The annexation question comes up for a vote before the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission today.

Meanwhile, the Capistrano Beach Community Assn. has voted to pursue possible cityhood in conjunction with unincorporated Dana Point. However, some observers are skeptical that a city combining both communities could generate sufficient tax base for community services without Dana Point Harbor, which officials say the county would never agree to give up.

Regardless, Britton said the feasibility study submitted by the consulting firm Rosenow Spevacek Group indicates that Capistrano Beach can succeed and provide a return on tax-increment revenue financing bonds if it were declared a redevelopment area.

“It is a physically smaller area than Dana Point, but it offers the potential for perhaps a small convention center, visitor-serving commercial shops, and there is some land that could be developed for light industrial use by San Juan Creek and a sewer treatment plant,” Britton said Tuesday.

“It is a quiet, backwater area that seems to have an awful lot of potential for development,” Britton said, adding: “We’ve done the technical study to show it can pay for itself; now we need to look at the human impacts.”

Meetings Planned

Britton said he hoped to schedule one or more meetings with the Capistrano Beach community association and residents in August.

Residents would benefit from redevelopment, Britton said, by improved property values, more shops, restaurants and enhanced employment opportunities.

But he conceded that it could also lead to the displacement of low-income people, who now live in one of the last remaining affordable seaside communities in Orange County.