Battle for Ridgelines Looming in San Juan : Development: Man who helped city incorporate 31 years ago vows to challenge law that keeps him from developing property that includes Capistrano Valley’s revered ridges.

Sacred is a word reserved in this historic city for more than just the 216-year-old Mission San Juan Capistrano.

There is also the venerable Swallows Inn and the entire downtown, the Michael Graves-designed library, the Los Rios neighborhood, the city’s two ancient cemeteries--and the ridgelines.

Here in the Capistrano Valley, the backbone of the hills that encircle the community are considered sacrosanct and, by city law, are off-limits to development.

“I don’t really like to use the word, but the ridgelines are sacred to this community,” Mayor Gil Jones said. “Our community has always been a valley of its own and the unencumbered ridgelines and hillsides keep that character alive. . . . They add to the ambience, although I know there are people who own that property who don’t agree.”

One of those people is Morris Misbin, a man who helped form the city of San Juan Capistrano 31 years ago. Misbin, the owner of 100 acres of rugged ridge and canyon property along the city’s southern border with San Clemente, has vowed to test the city’s ridgeline law in court.

Misbin, a feisty 78-year-old who has been a major player in the development of Orange County for five decades, calls the law unconstitutional and an injustice “akin to tyranny.”

The only fair way to protect property from development is to buy it, Misbin said, as has been done in the city of Laguna Beach. That city purchased major ridgelines it wants to keep as open space.

“I helped start this city, but I’ll ruin it if I have to,” Misbin said. “The city has arbitrarily, knowingly or unknowingly, trampled on my property rights. The government can do anything it considers right for the welfare of the people, but there must be compensation.”

City officials shudder at the thought of a costly legal fight, but they also understand the strong local sentiment to preserve the ridgelines.

City Councilwoman-elect Carolyn Nash, whose husband, Doug, was mayor and helped write the city’s ridgeline policy, said protection of the ridgelines was a prominent issue in this year’s council elections.

“It came up everywhere I went,” said Nash, who was the leading vote-getter in an eight-candidate race. “I’ll tell you, people in the community really support this issue. They feel really strong about it.”

The origin of the 4-year-old city ridgeline law, the only such ordinance in the county, dates from the slow-growth movement in the 1970s. Anti-development interests elected a majority of the council and began to rein in the go-go development days of the 1960s and look to ways to control the city’s growth, said Nash, a former planning commissioner.

The City Council was downscaling its original General Plan, which had foreseen a San Juan Capistrano with 80,000 residents. It asked residents to describe what they found unique about San Juan Capistrano and what they wanted for their city’s future.

“The thing most people saw was this small town in a picturesque valley surrounded by the ridgelines and separate from the rest of the county,” Nash said. “No matter where you looked, you could not see development, people said.”

As a result, the city in the early 1970s adopted a new General Plan that protected from development a swath of land 200 feet along each side of the most prominent ridgelines that encircled the valley.

“The ridgelines that were chosen were based on the view corridors from the center of town,” City Councilman Kenneth E. Friess said. “If you stood in the middle of town and looked around, all the ridges you could see were dedicated as protected.”

In 1989, the city reinforced the General Plan by adopting a zoning ordinance that banned development along many of the ridgelines.

That commitment stood unchallenged until last year, when the city settled out of court with a local developer, Robert Maurer, who sued over the right to build a single home on land he owned on “Porcupine Hill.”

The contest between the city and Maurer became known as the “Battle of Porcupine Hill,” named because of the date palms that lined the spine of Maurer’s property overlooking the city. After spending $800,000 in legal fees, and fearing the costs would only go higher, a divided City Council backed off last January and told Maurer he could build his house.

At the time, some predicted the settlement would bring new challenges to the ridgelines prohibition, though others said Maurer’s situation was unique.

It took less than a year for Misbin to present the next challenge, which involves 100 acres, as many as 75 home sites and a wide swath of the vista.

Misbin, who turned part of his holdings into the now constructed Alto Capistrano, Meredith Canyon and Connemara tracts, maintains that his right to build along the ridgelines dates from a development plan approved by the county that predates San Juan Capistrano’s incorporation in 1961. Ironically, for Misbin, it was only his last-minute agreement to include within the proposed city’s boundaries about 2,600 acres he owned that gave the city enough assessed land value to win approval for incorporation from the Board of Supervisors.

Thirty-one years later, Misbin insists that he again holds the city’s future in his hands and expects to win his challenge over the ridgelines either in City Hall or in court.

He has sold an option on his property to Irvine-based Concorde Development, which is seeking to grade 1,200 feet of the protected ridgeline and turn the acreage into custom home lots. The project, which was rejected by the city last year, has been redesigned and will be before the Planning Commission on Dec. 8.

A court test of the ridgeline law could depend on what city officials do with the project.

“I’m sitting on a powder keg in this thing, and the city knows it,” Misbin said.

Friess, who will leave the council today, said there are several reasons why he believes that the city will give in to Misbin.

In the first place, the ridgelines that were designated for protection were “pretty much arbitrary,” he said.

Second, the only people who can really see Misbin’s property are San Clemente residents, and the city should not wage a costly court battle for another city, Friess said.

“From my standpoint, the city ought to let them go ahead and build the damn thing,” Friess said. “It’s a little hard for me to see how this will really affect people in San Juan Capistrano. And how can people in San Clemente complain when you look at how the city has treated the rest of its ridgelines.”

City Atty. Richard Denhalter has heard Misbin’s claims but maintains that the law will withstand a court challenge.

“Zoning laws are about as old as government itself,” Denhalter said. “They go back to the ability of a jurisdiction to zone for the community to protect residents from inconsistent uses and to provide for their health, safety and welfare.”

As for Misbin, Denhalter said he is a man “who just threatens a lot. . . . What he really wants is to maximize the number of lots they can jam into his parcel.”

Mayor Jones, however, is not so sure.

“Hopefully, we can settle this thing,” he said.