No More Letting It Slide : Developer Says 30-Home Plan Is Key to Fixing San Clemente ’83 Landslide Area

While many homeowners cope with damage from recent landslides, a massive 1983 slide that destroyed 10 homes and scarred an affluent Verde Canyon neighborhood is causing new rumblings of a different sort.

To the dismay of some, and the relief of others, a developer is proposing to spend $6 million to $8 million to stabilize Verde Canyon and rebuild on the 10 condemned properties, six of which still have homes that were long ago abandoned and remain boarded-up haunts for vandals and transients.

The catch is that Verde Canyon Redevelopment Inc. says it would need to build 30 new semi-custom homes in the bottom of the 18-acre canyon to make the rehabilitation project profitable.

About 60% of the canyon would be altered to stabilize the slide area and make way for the new ocean-view homes, which would market for between $600,000 and $800,000.

Although a formal building application only reached city officials last week, residents have already started taking sides in what promises to be a long and controversial planning process. Supporters believe that the proposal is the only realistic solution they have seen since the 1983 disaster to remove the blight and prevent further slides.

Opponents say the canyon should be preserved and the city should take responsibility for repairing the damaged homes.

As City Atty. Jeffrey M. Oderman recently described the situation: “It’s been sort of a festering sore out there for many years.

“No matter which way you go, there are problems,” he said.

It was on a clear evening on Dec. 30, 1983, when 47 homes were damaged in the massive slide, which involved about four acres of land on the western side of the canyon.

Residents charged at the time that a broken water main was responsible, while the city alleged that it was over-watering of lawns by several homeowners that contributed to the problem.

More recent evidence indicates that Verde Canyon is the site of an ancient landslide. The development of Verde Canyon took place in 1965, before the city required geologic reports for residential building.

During the slide, three homes at the end of cul-de-sacs on Via Catalina and Via la Jolla were carried down the canyon wall, including one with an 83-year-old woman inside. She survived, but the houses were destroyed.

Another seven ocean-view homes on Via la Mesa, Via Catalina and Via la Jolla, which were valued from $200,000 to $500,000, were left uninhabitable. Only one of the houses has been torn down, and the streets, blocked only by chain-link fences, still end where the houses fell off.

About three years after the slide, the city’s insurance company paid $5 million to the people whose homes were destroyed or damaged in the slide.

Despite objections from city officials, the settlement--forged by the insurance company--did not include any money to repair the streets, stabilize the canyon or demolish the condemned houses.

Although all agree that Verde Canyon must be repaired and the blight removed, questions about how best to achieve such goals remain deeply divisive to canyon residents.

Supporters of the development proposal say they have been waiting nine years for someone to come in and repair their neighborhood and shore up the canyon. Home values in the area took a dive because of the slide and blight, and some residents along the edge of the canyon say they fear that their homes are in danger of tumbling down the hill during the next mishap.

“It was an up and coming area, and now it’s unfortunately been going downhill, literally, for nine years,” said Joanne Paulin, who has lived near the canyon on East Avenida Cordoba since 1975. “None of us would choose to have houses in the canyon, but after nine years we don’t know how we can pay to fix the canyon.”

Under the developer’s proposal, between 100,000 and 200,000 cubic yards of dirt would be moved in to partially fill the bottom of the canyon and to buttress the slide area. The canyon bottom would be raised by a maximum of 50 feet in some places because of the fill.

When Curry and Linda Kirkpatrick bought their home four years ago on the corner of Via la Mesa and East Avenida Cordoba, they had no idea how complicated the task of cleaning up their neighborhood would become.

They bought the condemned house next door on Via la Mesa, tore it down, and started pressuring the city to do the same with the other six boarded-up houses.

But since reviewing the geology and engineering reports commissioned by the development company, they believe that the problems in the canyon are much more widespread than previously thought.

“You have to fix the canyon first,” Curry Kirkpatrick said. “How in the world would we get anyone to spend $6 million for only 10 homes?

“This is a responsible solution. It’s the only viable solution.”

Opponents, however, say that the canyon should be preserved and that the city has shirked its responsibility in resolving the problems. City officials say that private property owners should be responsible for cleaning up the area.

“We are not anti-growth, we are not a bunch of NIMBYs (not in my back yard), nor are we wide-eyed environmental radicals,” said Paul Lukes, who lives on the eastern edge of the canyon and is leading the “Save Verde Canyon” campaign.

“We’re united in an unshakable belief in sensible and balanced development, not one born to bail out a financially strapped city from one of its headaches.”

Instead of stabilizing the canyon, the development work could further undermine the unstable soil, Lukes and other opponents of the project claim.

“To solve one set of problems by creating a host of other problems is not a solution,” Lukes said. “It’s just ill-advised to disturb what’s there. Who wants to take the chances? No one comes to your rescue when something does go wrong.”

One resident, Franklin Metzleur, claims that an access road built by the developer below his property has already caused soil movement in his back yard.

“I was against the project before I knew we were suffering any damage,” said Metzleur, who’s lived for 17 years on the northern edge of the canyon off La Esperanza. “I think the natural beauty of the canyon would be seriously hurt.”

Since Verde Canyon Redevelopment Inc. held a series of informational meetings for homeowners within 300 feet of the canyon last month, residents on both sides of the issue have been passing around petitions and lobbying city officials.

In the ensuing fray, Steve Marsh, the company’s project manager who lives in the canyon neighborhood, said he hopes that people will give the project time to prove itself.

He denies that the access road caused any slippage and points to numerous spots of recent slope movement in the canyon not associated with the road.

“We are not going to go in and carve out any part of the hill; all we’re going to do is place dirt against it,” said Marsh, who has spent 15 months shaping the proposal with company President Bernie Truax. “With each shovel of dirt, it stabilizes the hill that much more.”

For their part, city officials said they just started investigating whether the development would be allowed under the city canyon ordinance and current zoning standards.

Although Marsh said the development would be permitted under current zoning standards, a proposed change in the city general plan would allow only one unit per 20 acres in the canyon. Marsh said such a change would strip the company’s property rights.

The developer is in escrow on the property, but the deal is hinged on winning city approval for the project.

“What we’re asking the city to do is to treat Verde Canyon as a unique situation,” Marsh said. “We’d like to resolve the problems that would be a win-win situation for everyone.”

The planning process for the canyon, which will require an environmental impact report, will take at least a year, according to officials. On Feb. 22, the Planning Commission will consider the proposed general plan and open space issues for Verde Canyon.

STORM WARNING

Orange County missed the first one but it isn’t expected to be so lucky with the second in a series of Pacific storms. B4