Residents Leave Homes Before They Slip Away

Beneath a ridge-top apartment complex called the Bluffs, with its classic, million-dollar view of the lush valley and manicured golf course below, the ground is moving.

So are the residents.

Skittish renters are evacuating many of the stucco and tile roof apartments--for reasons that are obvious even to the untrained eye. A huge fissure creeps along the earth. Gashes remain where trees once stood. Staircases have been twisted like flexible modeling clay into pretzel-like forms.

Although the cause of the slippage is a mystery to the builders of the 450-unit complex, they are taking the precaution of getting some of the occupants out before matters grow worse.

“We think it is a subsidence (settling) problem,” said Rick Sherman, executive vice president of the William Lyon Co. “We’re not sure what the cause is. We’re investigating it.”

On Tuesday morning, a caravan of long, white moving vans pulled up to the curb to move four families. Another four households will be moving today and so on until the building is empty of all 32 families to be evacuated by July 1.

Last summer, 32 occupants were moved from the complex’s already-damaged building after company representatives first noticed signs that the ground was unstable. But the slippage accelerated greatly a few weeks ago, causing vast cracks to appear seemingly overnight in the now-empty structures and the ground, residents say.

“There used to be a tree here,” said Andrea Steed, pointing to a four-foot-deep crevice that starts a few feet from her bedroom window and winds its way down the hill. “I woke up one morning and the tree was just lying on the ground.

“They told us that we have until July 1 (to move), but there’s no way we were going to wait that long.”

So far, local authorities are just as perplexed as to the cause of the slippage. Dana Point building officials say they are waiting for a geological report from the builder before drawing any conclusions about origin of the slope instability.

Although the destruction in the building evacuated last summer is evident, city officials say there is no immediate threat to the building being evacuated. But the Lyon Co. decided to pay for moving the residents, figuring it should be “better safe than sorry,” Sherman said. Residents are being moved to other units in the complex or have made other arrangements.

For the last week, Hank Camisaca has watched the trucks roll by his front door and seen his neighbors disappear, one by one.

“It was amazing how fast this all developed,” he said. “Nobody was ready for it. . . . All of a sudden it started falling apart.”

Most residents interviewed Tuesday were happy that the Lyon Co. was paying for their move, although Steed said she wished she had been told about the geological problems before she rented her apartment last year.

“When we were being shown the place, (the rental agent) told us that the building next door was being remodeled,” she said.

The apartments line the top of a ridge overlooking the Monarch Beach golf course. Although many homes on the surrounding hillsides are worth more than $1 million, rent at the Bluffs starts at $725 per month for a one-bedroom unit.

The building being evacuated will eventually be shored up, then reopened, Sherman said. The apartments where the problem first surfaced will be torn down.