Latest Proposal for Oceanfront Tract Opposed

Owners of the bluff-top Headlands property have unveiled their latest proposal for the 128 acres of prime oceanfront land, meeting immediate resistance from some residents.

After hearing plans for the land that include a 400-room resort hotel, 19 acres of commercial property and 567 homes, residents began picking the proposal apart to cheers in the City Council chambers Monday night.

“I have a hard time visualizing what we are talking about tonight as being important for the city of Dana Point,” said Toni Gallagher, one of 35 residents who live on the Headlands now. “People are sick of development. They want open space, and they want lots of it.”

The city is just a few months away from adopting an overall plan for the Headlands and another prime oceanfront parcel just up the coast. Monday’s informal meeting allowed the Headlands’ owners to tell the council and the public what they would like to see on the land before the city plan is written.

Open space was only one of the concerns listed by the local speakers following presentation of the development proposal by William R. Phillips, president of PBR, a firm representing the Newport Beach-based M.H. Sherman Co. and Chandis Securities Co., the Headlands’ owners. Traffic generated by the development was another concern, as were grading, the potential number of homes and effects on wildlife in the area.

For city officials and Dana Point residents, Phillips’ proposal has been awaited ever since Qintex, an Australian development company that held an option on the property, went into receivership in 1989. With Qintex no longer in the picture, the future of the land--a city landmark that is also considered one of the prime pieces of coastal real estate in Southern California--became a question mark.

Last September, the owners put the property up for sale with a value estimated between $187 million and $212 million, far above the $120-million sale price it had agreed to with Qintex only a year before. The September marketing package listed a range of prices, rather than an asking price “because of the property’s unique nature,” the marketing document indicated.

With the 2-year-old city of Dana Point now in the midst of writing its first General Plan, however, the property has been taken off the market and “is not for sale at this time,” said Dan Daniels of Laguna Beach, president of M.H. Sherman Co.

Phillips alluded to the General Plan in a letter that accompanied his presentation. He said his land-use plan for the Headlands reflects “the direction given by the General Plan Committee throughout the General Plan process.”

Among the features of the plan are a minimum of 63.8 acres of open space (about 50% of the Headlands’ area) including a bluff-top park and a hilltop view park at the highest point of the property, a cluster of commercial and hotel facilities at the southern end of the property overlooking the harbor, and two residential areas with a reduction of the maximum number of units from 800, as proposed in the city’s draft General Plan, to 567.

But Gallagher, who is a spokesperson for the Concerned Citizens and Residents of the Headlands, was not satisfied. She called the potential 567 housing units “a move in the right direction, but I don’t think it’s a number we should be happy with. . . . That’s what’s wrong with the whole concept, you’re trying to put too much in there.”