County Backs Elderly Care Center Project : Planning: Preservationists, who contend that the 356-unit plan would negatively impact San Juan’s landscape, fail in bid to send the plan back to review process.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday rejected a local preservationist group’s efforts to block a 356-unit elderly care center that critics say would mar the landscape of the San Juan Capistrano area.

In bringing the appeal at a public hearing, Mark B. Clancey, president of Friends of Historic San Juan Capistrano, charged that the development, as now approved, “bears no resemblance” to the religious retreat first proposed for the site in 1987 by the Crystal Cathedral Ministries.

The development would feature a three-story, elderly care facility, along with a 200-vehicle parking lot and a single-story administrative building. All would be on the ministry’s 94-acre ranch along Camino Capistrano, south of Avery Parkway at Interstate 5.

The ministry, headed by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, also owns the adjacent 77-acre Bathgate Ranch, and officials in the past have discussed putting a cemetery, a mausoleum, a new sanctuary, and a 45-foot lighted cross on the Bathgate land. The future of those proposals is uncertain and they were not considered Tuesday by the supervisors.

The county’s Planning Commission approved the proposal in January, and Clancey’s group appealed that decision to the supervisors.

Critics of the project wanted the supervisors to send the proposal back to the Planning Commission for more review, and their hopes appeared to be bolstered by a surprise endorsement from San Juan Capistrano Councilman Kenneth E. Friess, who said he was speaking on behalf of the city.

County officials and church representatives said they had not known that the city opposed the project. But Friess, while voicing some support for the concept of an elderly care center, said its “massive” size would mark “a visual intrusion” to the city.

John A. Michler, a design consultant who represented the ministry before the supervisors, said he was caught off guard by Friess’ comments but said the ministry nonetheless stood behind the project.

“We believe that the project will reflect the highest quality of architecture and landscape,” he said. “The board will be proud of the project when it is finally built. . . . We believe it should be allowed to proceed.”

Critics also suggested that the project will hurt the local traffic flow. Three persons spoke against the development and two spoke for it.

The only supervisor to comment was Thomas F. Riley, whose district includes the project site. He noted the new opposition from Friess but said that “in the final analysis,” the project is both “appropriate” and “reasonable.”

The denial of the appeal passed, 5 to 0.

Michler said he hopes that construction can begin within six months, with completion of the project within two years.

Supervisors delayed until April 21 a decision on another appeal of a disputed Planning Commission decision--this one allowing Lake Hills Church to build a school and day-care center in Laguna Hills under the flight path to the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The Marines want the decision overturned.

In other action Tuesday, the supervisors, as expected, signed off on a plan to have pilots at John Wayne Airport experiment with new takeoff procedures.

As part of a concession to residents who complain about plane noise, jets at John Wayne have been cutting their power at 500 feet. But pilots complain that this is a dangerous practice, so they will be allowed to cut their engines instead at 800 feet during a five-month test run.