Dramatic Plan Aims to Stabilize Laguna Niguel Hillside

When the 500-foot hillside supporting part of the upscale Niguel Summit development in Laguna Niguel gave way in March, experts crawled across the fractured slopes, trying to decide how to prevent further movement.

Now, the first phase of a possible solution is underway: Sixty-four concrete pillars are being installed about 110 feet into the ground until they are fixed in bedrock, then secured to the hillside by steel cables about 5 inches thick and stretching 120 feet into the side of the slope.

“It’s like bolting the hillside back together, except you’re using huge bolts with tremendous capacity,” said Ralph Jeffery of American Geotechnical, which helped design what experts are calling a temporary fix.

Whether the dramatic effort to rescue the community succeeds remains to be seen.

“This is something to stabilize it for now,” said Kathleen Strong, a San Diego attorney who represents the Niguel Summit Homeowners Assn. in a complex lawsuit that may be headed to trial next month.

Meanwhile, in the months since several houses tumbled down the slope and crashed into a condominium complex below, property values also have begun to slide, even as home prices soar elsewhere around Orange County. Some residents in the area have begun receiving county notices of assessment reductions--in a few cases, up to 60%.

“It’s certainly an impartial voice confirming that their values have declined as a result of the landslide,” said Vance Simonds, a lawyer who represents 52 homeowners whose houses were not destroyed but who believe that their property values are suffering.

State law allows for “calamity reassessments” in case of events such as landslides, making the stabilization work all the more urgent as a signal that property values are being shored up by aggressive action, Simonds said.

The March 19 landslide toppled three houses from their hilltop lots and crushed five condominium units in the Crown Cove complex at the base of the hill. Geological experts, acting on evidence of slope movement, had predicted that the slide would occur, and residents were evacuated before the event.

However, the slide was particularly violent. Passing motorists could clearly see the $500,000 houses coated with stucco and capped by red tile as they dangled over 100-foot cliffs. The slide also upended and twisted the condo building below.

Twenty-one condominiums were destroyed or condemned along with nine houses.

Residents, victims and homeowners associations have sued Hon Development and the owner of home builder J.M. Peters Co. along with companies involved in grading and geotechnical work on the 1,400-home Niguel Summit development.

Built in the 1980s, Niguel Summit was designed and built around at least six old landslide areas that were graded, buttressed and altered to provide the building pads for the development. It is one of many south Orange County hill areas where homeowners have encountered slope stability problems.

“This is very complex geology in this area, and the slide mass makes it more complicated than it was,” said Reed Ruck, project engineer for DBM, the Seattle contractor installing the 64 concrete caissons being used as a wall to prevent a further landslide.

The caissons will ensure that the hillside remains stable west of Via Estoril. But geologists have not decided how to shore up the hillside east of Via Estoril, where the slide took place. Also undecided is whether to rebuild the 21 condemned condos and the nine condemned houses.

The project, costing between $2 million and $3 million, began in mid-June and will continue at least until October as workers install the stabilizing caissons along the top of the landslide. There, the wrecked houses still lie as they fell five months ago, the land too unstable to permit their salvage.

Ongoing litigation is expected to determine who ultimately picks up the cost of the work, which is now being paid for by the homeowners association with funds provided by the developer.

From Via Estoril, the street at the top of the landslide, parts of the houses remain intact, with views through gaping, open front doors looking to missing rear walls and patios and pools dumped dozens of feet down the failed slope.

In some houses, there are still signs of abandoned family lives--neatly piled firewood in the garage of one house slated for demolition, shelves lined with bug spray and paint and a pair of Reebok shoes.

Down slope, the Crown Cove condos may never be the same. Security fences surround overgrown grass, mangled trees and upended buildings.

Attorneys have been meeting with mediators for months, and one attorney, Thomas Miller of Newport Beach, who represents the homeowners association for the Crown Cove condominiums, said developers made a settlement offer last week. He said he cannot comment on the specifics, but called the offer “significant.”

“We’ve got homeowners displaced, homeowners living in a ghost town, everywhere over there you have debris lying around, and they can’t take much more,” Miller said. “Maybe it’ll be over soon.”