Homeowners Group Must Pay Couple $5,000

In an unusually scathing ruling, a South County small-claims court commissioner has ordered the Rancho Santa Margarita homeowners association to pay $5,000 in damages after cutting back a resident’s Italian cypress trees because they were supposedly too tall.

“The seemingly malicious manner in which the defendants carried out the cutting of the plaintiffs’ trees appear[s] to reflect the heavy-handed caprice and arbitrary wielding of power under color of authority at its worst,” according to the three-page judgment Monday by Commissioner Lyle J. Robertson.

He said a homeowners association should “promote and preserve tranquillity and harmony among neighbors.” But when it came to Gina and Michael McClure’s trees, the association abused its power, according to Robertson.

The McClures were thrilled with the outcome of the dispute that took on a life of its own, turning into a referendum on local control in the popular 10,000-home planned community built by the Santa Margarita Co.

“We won it all,” Gina McClure said Monday. “The judge saw it our way.”

The homeowners association spokeswoman said the group will appeal the ruling because it undermines efforts to maintain a uniform community appearance.

“When you plant a two-story high tree, it’s incompatible with the openness designed for the community,” said Dee Wells, region manager for the area’s property management firm.

Some local residents say the homeowners association--whose board of directors is controlled by a majority that works for the developer but does not live within the community--was insensitive to the McClures’ unusual situation.

“This is a wake-up call for people in Rancho Santa Margarita,” Michael McClure said. “We need to elect board members who live in our community.”

Board members, however, say the vast majority of residents are pleased with the board representation and continue to give their vote to nonresidents.

Nearly 10 years ago, the McClures lined their corner property with 27 Italian cypress trees, looking forward to the day when the trees would grow tall enough to be a buffer against traffic whizzing by on busy Antonio Parkway.

The trees had reached nearly 18 feet by mid-1994, when the property management company hired by the homeowners association asked the McClures to cut back the trees to meet new guidelines limiting the height of “privacy barriers” to 10 feet.

In response, the McClures argued that the new guidelines should not apply to their trees, which were planted before the rule was in place.

Additionally, they maintained, there were no complaints from neighbors and the trees were not blocking anyone’s view.

The association says it tried to reach a compromise with the McClures, but when that failed, there was no choice but to enforce the guidelines.

In May, the association sent tree trimmers with chain saws to cut the trees as McClure and her frightened son looked on.

McClure called the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which stopped the workers before they had cut back all the trees.

Now, the McClures have a mix of tall and short trees.

The damage award will cover most but not all of the estimated $8,000 it will cost to replace the chopped trees with mature cypresses.

“It’s going to replace most of the trees, and we’re happy for that,” Gina McClure said. “But there’s going to be nothing to make up for the grief they’ve caused us.”