SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : City to Stop Payment on Study Center Home

Citing a lack of funds, the City Council will stop making payments on a redevelopment agency property and let it revert back to the original owner.

The house at 31431 Camino Capistrano has been home to Libros Y Artes, which operates the Decorative Arts Study Center.

The council voted unanimously on Tuesday to cease making payments to owner Gephard Durenberger.

“This is very hard for us, but basically we’re running out of money,” Mayor Carolyn Nash said. “We’re doing everything we can to keep the city afloat.”

The city paid Durenberger $1 million for the property in 1988 with the purpose of having the Decorative Arts Study Center established.

Under the terms of a promissory note, payments were $8,333 a month for 30 years, which would have brought the eventual price to nearly $3 million.

But with its redevelopment agency now nearly $1 million in the red, the City Council has been looking for ways to save money.

Council members said the move to sever ties to the property did not mean they are no longer supporters of the center, which has in its library more than 1,500 volumes on architecture, furniture, gardens and silverware.

Durenberger urged council members “not to default and destroy what has been built on all these years.”

But City Councilman Wyatt T. Hart said the city had no choice but to quit making payments.

“We’re talking about a piece of property that we can’t basically pay for,” he said.