San Juan City Council Approves Ban on Ridgeline Development

The San Juan Capistrano City Council has approved a new law that would permanently ban any development on a series of rolling hills that wind through the historical city.

The ridgeline preservation ordinance, which was adopted by a 4-1 vote Tuesday night, prohibits construction or grading within 200 feet of any ridgeline in the city.

Councilman Phillip R. Schwartze cast the only vote against the ordinance, which goes into effect next month.

The council passed the law in response to the shrinking natural landscape in South Orange County. Many of the hills and ridges in surrounding communities have been terraced and houses built on them.

Protection of San Juan Capistrano’s ridge tops until now had been enacted piecemeal, with city officials considering hillside development on a project-by-project basis.

By relying on the new law rather than separate guidelines set forth in the city’s general plan--a developmental blueprint--city officials can better defend the anti-development policy in court, said City Atty. John R. Shaw.

“We now have a concrete ordinance that sets up what I call a 200-foot rule, horizontally from the ridge top, saying that nothing can be built,” Shaw said. But the law has already been challenged by one local developer, who is angry that the ordinance will prevent him from building a multimillion-dollar estate on the peak of a hill he owns near Ortega Highway.

Robert Maurer, owner of Coral Properties development company, has threatened to sue the city, saying he was given verbal permission at a Planning Commission meeting in February, 1976, to build the estate.

As part of development plans that included two housing tracts, Maurer asked to build a mansion on a one-third acre, hilltop parcel, which would furnish his proposed home with a 360-degree view.

Maurer’s attorney, Roger A. Grable, has argued that because the home is planned atop foundations of the former Belford family house, which was destroyed by fire in the 1920s, required grading would not be severe enough to violate the ridgeline law.

The council disagreed with that argument last month when it denied Maurer a waiver under an interim version of the new law, originally enacted July 18 as an urgency ordinance. The final version of the law adopted Tuesday also contains provisions to apply for a waiver, which could be granted at council discretion.

“I don’t think we qualify for the exemption,” Grable said. “We have completed all available processes for construction of the site. The ordinance . . . would not afford us the ability to get approval.”

Maurer can apply for a waiver when the ordinance takes effect Nov. 2, Shaw said.