Homeowners Accept $1.3-Million Deal : Housing: Residents of Stevenson Ranch’s Marblehead area say that they need money to fix their houses and build a swimming pool they were promised.

A group of homeowners has accepted a $1.3-million settlement from the developer who built their Stevenson Ranch complex near Valencia, saying they need the money for repairs and for improvements they were promised when they bought their homes, attorneys said Monday.

In addition to mending roofs, electrical wiring and plumbing fixtures, the settlement will also pay for paving an incomplete street and building a swimming pool that was promised to the 56 residents of the Marblehead development, attorneys and residents said.

“Basically, we are hoping to get these people the community that they thought they were buying into,” said Dana Perlman, attorney for the Marblehead Homeowners Assn.

The settlement, which does not include any admission of wrongdoing, is expected to be approved by a Superior Court judge at a hearing on April 26, Perlman said.

“We are pleased that the case was settled on an amicable basis,” said Stephen Flaherty, attorney for CCR Associates and Stone Properties, Inc., two of the main defendants in the lawsuit.

The repairs they make using the settlement, residents said, will allow people to sell the homes they bought in 1990. No banks would make loans on the homes for the past two years because of their troubled history, the project’s lack of amenities and the litigation, residents said.

“Obviously, everyone wants to get out of here because everyone has a very bitter taste in their mouths,” said Joann Krutainis, president of the homeowners group. “I personally like Stevenson Ranch. It’s a nice place to be.”

The suit, filed in February, 1992, initially asked for $5 million in damages from the developers, including CCR Associates, Perlcal I, Perlman Properties of California, Inc., Stone Properties, Inc., and the Mitchell Company, Inc.

The Dale Poe Development Corp., creator of Stevenson Ranch, is the sole defendant not included in the recent settlement.

Poe, according to the suit, was to have built at least one decorative water fountain as part of the complex, an issue that has yet to be settled, Perlman said.

The Marblehead development ran into trouble in 1990 after its backers ran into financial difficulties, but not before selling 56 of the 64 first-phase units and beginning construction on phase two.

Construction ground to a halt later that year, leaving bare housing foundations with steel support bars protruding from concrete slabs. Because a promised playground was never built for the families that occupied phase one of the project, some children turned the construction site into a skateboard park.

That winter found most of the homes with leaky roofs, and residents complained of noisy plumbing and shoddy construction with little or no response from the developers. At one point, water from an underground pipe burst through the pavement in the middle of the night.

It is unclear whether construction of the remaining three phases of the project will continue, Flaherty said.

“The major problem now in this depressed real estate market is to find a lender willing to provide financing” for the project, Flaherty said.

The homeowners still have a suit for damages pending against Los Angeles County, alleging the county was negligent in inspecting the complex during construction.

In a response filed in Superior Court earlier this month, the county cited a state code that says “a public entity is not liable for injury caused by its failure to make an inspection, or by reason of making an inadequate or negligent inspection, of any property.”

The code was enacted to protect public entities that would otherwise be at risk of liability for virtually all property defects within their jurisdictions, since cities and counties inspect almost every building site.