DANA POINT : City Files Complaint Over Charity Group

City officials have taken legal action against a group of residents for allegedly trying to convert a long-abandoned shack into a church without a permit.

In a complaint filed in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana on Friday, Dana Point seeks to stop all renovation work on the property and to prevent the site from being used as a church.

Group members say no construction work has been done on the former Caltrans building located at 34411 Doheny Park Road and are adamant that no organized religious services will be held there.

Their main goal is to make the parcel “nicer for the community” and provide meals for the needy, said Mindie Becerril, whose husband, Sal Becerril, is named in the complaint.

Hot food has been passed out at the site every Tuesday for the past six weeks, she said, “and if we say a little prayer, isn’t that guaranteed by our freedom of speech?”

But city officials say they have been told directly by group leaders that they plan to turn the one-acre site into a 24-hour prayer center.

“Mr. Becerril himself told me that it was going to be a house of prayer,” said Angela Duzich, a code enforcement officer. “He said it was going to be a 24-hour house of prayer and it was going to be a shelter. That land is not zoned to be a place of worship.”

Long abandoned, the building has been used by transients, who tore up floorboards to use for firewood. The building boasts a fresh coat of white paint and new window shutters bearing crosses.

The problem, say city officials, is that the former Caltrans property sits in an isolated island of land, hemmed in by a freeway on-ramp and a busy connector road to Pacific Coast Highway. The city has zoned the parcel for open space uses only.

Duzich said the property was purchased from Caltrans in 1976 by Cynthia and William Holder and Tula Garcia Guirola, who are also named in the complaint.

Sal Becerril has said that he leases the parcel from the landowners, Duzich said.

The property has no electrical or gas hookups and no curb cuts to provide a driveway. A plank of wood sits in the gutter before the entrance to help vehicles climb over the curb.

Approximately six camper shells sit in the rear of the parcel. Overnight stays in the campers would violate a city law that prohibits anyone from living in a stored camper shell, Duzich said.

The city code enforcement officer said she wasn’t aware of food being passed out at the site and will check with the County Health Agency to make sure no local or county ordinances are being violated.