War Over Palisades Canyon Use Ends as 2 Families Call a Truce

Peaceful Palisades Canyon hardly resembles a battleground.

These days, the narrow canyon that snakes uphill from Coast Highway into the Palisades bluff in Capistrano Beach echoes with the happy sounds of children playing soccer, an occasional bird’s song and the wind whistling through the eucalyptus trees.

For the past two years, however, the canyon represented a rift between two neighbors that threatened to disrupt the quiet hillside. For the Carters and the Dapelos, two families perched in expansive, ocean-view homes above the canyon directly across from each other, Palisades Canyon meant war.

One family, the Dapelos, thought the canyon should be turned into a playing field and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert it. The other family, the Carters, said they wanted it to remain untouched, what environmentalists call a “wildlife corridor.”

The disagreement over the fate of the canyon, actually a deep ravine, prompted threats and lawsuits, charges of spying and taunting, and finally court-issued restraining orders to keep both sides at bay.

Earlier this month, however, the Dana Point Planning Commission declared an end to the hostilities by ruling that the canyon playing field should remain as is.

The ruling delighted the Dapelos, who own the property in question.

“Finally, it’s over,” said Gary A. Dapelo, a Newport Beach attorney and local businessman, a day after the commission ruled that his two sons could keep their expansive canyon playground for their games of soccer and baseball. “All I ever wanted was a yard for my kids.”

Dr. James E. Carter, an obstetrician and gynecologist, said he will abide by the commission’s decision.

“If that’s what the city wants, then that’s fine,” he said.

It all began about six years ago when Dapelo decided to turn the canyon, which environmentalists considered a wildlife corridor, into an 18,000-square-foot playing field. He said he spent $400,000 to grade the 50-foot-by-60-foot ravine, fill it with 30 feet of fill dirt, add a layer of sod and install a new drainage system for the natural canyon water flow.

Carter objected, saying county permits in 1984--before Dana Point’s incorporation--had prohibited grading, filling or removal of native plants in the canyon.

The battle was on.

Both men hired attorneys and both, after several confrontations in the street, filed suits and countersuits. Carter painted a side of his house orange, the side facing the Dapelos. Carter also installed an elaborate video surveillance system.

After the battle had dragged on for months, Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Polis in June, 1990, granted Dapelo “a six-figure settlement,” according to Dapelo. The exact amount has been kept private and Carter referred all questions to his attorney.

On Nov. 5, the Dana Point Planning Commission decided that “it would do more damage to undo the canyon than to leave it as it is,” said Lynn Dawson, the commission chairwoman.

“We had neighbors come in from all around and say they like it,” Dawson said. “Mr. Dapelo put in a forest of trees and it really is gorgeous. It was basically a drainage area with rat problems. After all, it really made the neighborhood better.”

While the two families have apparently called a truce, an Audubon Society official remains unhappy.

“The community is the one that lost,” said Audubon spokeswoman Marie Patterson, who lives in the Capistrano Beach neighborhood near the canyon. “We expected a restoration of the wildlife corridor. For it to have been destroyed and filled up for the benefit of a landowner and his private back yard is a real shame. It still really bothers me.”

Dapelo disagrees. He said he has added more than 300 native plants to the canyon. He called the whole experience “a nightmare.”

“I was the victim of a fabricated story,” he said. “I did everything with proper approvals.”

There is one saving grace, however, Dapelo said.

“The trees are big enough now so that I don’t have to see (Carter) and he doesn’t have to see me,” he said.