Community Loses Parcel to San Juan

Rejecting arguments from Capistrano Beach residents that the move would destroy their efforts to form a new city, the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission on Wednesday voted unanimously to annex 12.4 acres of unincorporated territory to San Juan Capistrano.

“I believe they are sincere in wanting their area to become a city,” said Commissioner Evelyn R. Hart, expressing her support for the annexation proposal. “I want to believe we can do as much as we can to support them. But I don’t believe that 12.4 acres would prevent them from becoming a city.”

Hart, an alternate member of the commission, was sitting in for Commissioner Phillip R. Schwartze, who declined to vote on the matter because he is a member of the San Juan Capistrano City Council. For about $10 million, that city’s Redevelopment Agency plans to buy the land from Great Western Savings plus an adjoining 10-acre parcel already in the city and also owned by Great Western. The annexation was a condition of the city’s purchase agreement with Great Western, which is based in Beverly Hills.

The city’s current plans for the 22.4-acre site on Doheny Park Road include a Price Club store and several smaller retail shops and restaurants that could generate several hundred thousand dollars a year in sales taxes for the city, Assistant City Manager Glenn Southard said. San Juan Capistrano now receives about $1.5 million a year in sales tax revenues, he said.

Great Western Senior Vice President Ian Campbell told the commission that earlier attempts to sell the land had failed because developers would have had to meet two different sets of regulations. “The project will only come to fruition if the vexing problem of split jurisdiction is resolved,” Campbell said.

A Capistrano Beach residents group that has been trying to mount an incorporation effort argued that the parcel’s sales tax potential would be vital to a future city. They presented a petition with about 1,000 signatures in favor of incorporation to the commission, and they asked that the commission give them enough time to determine whether they could in fact form a city before moving the parcel outside the community’s boundaries.

“The community of Capistrano Beach wants a chance to stand on its own in Orange County,” Bud Campbell, a local businessman, told the commission. “If you remove these 12 acres, that may be the last thing to stop Capistrano Beach (from forming a city) forever.”

But the commissioners, although they encouraged the Capistrano Beach group to continue with its incorporation effort, took a dim view of their contention that losing the parcel would put cityhood beyond their reach.

“A city anchored to just one development is doomed,” Commissioner Donald A. Holt Jr. said.

Barbara McCarthy, one of the leaders of the residents group, suggested after the meeting that it is doubtful that the group would go ahead and raise the $5,000 to $7,000 needed to pay for an incorporation feasibility study--the next step toward forming a city.

“I think a lot of wind will go out of our sails. It wouldn’t have been very easy with the land. It will be very difficult without it.”

But Terry Lucarelli, another member of the group, said they would appeal the commission’s decision and may still proceed with the study. “We’re not sorry we spent the time,” Lucarelli said. “Unfortunately, we were dealing with a corporate entity.”