Threatened Homes in Orange Built on Site of Past Slides
A subdivision in Orange where an unstable hillside is threatening 30 houses was built on land previously damaged by two large landslides--a fact known to developers and city officials, but not to home buyers.
In fact, the very spots where geologists 20 years ago documented those landslides were later converted into lots for more than a dozen houses, and the unstable hill now poses a threat to even more homes.
Records also document uneven bedrock and potentially unstable geology and show that many residential lots and slopes had to be rebuilt after the site went neglected for years following the original builder’s bankruptcy.
What ultimately emerged from this disarray was marketed as the Fieldstone Collection at Vista Royale, a product of the late 1980s housing boom in Orange County and one of several experiencing geological problems a decade later.
Others include Niguel Summit, site of a devastating landslide last winter, and Kite Hill, where a court-appointed expert has predicted a slope beneath several homes will fail. Both were developed in the 1970s and 1980s in Laguna Niguel by different builders.
At Vista Royale, officials have known for more than two years of serious problems at the top of a hillside that has moved up to nine inches in the past year and has begun buckling pavement and cracking houses and swimming pools. Experts have predicted there may be a major landslide in four to six months.
More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed by homeowners and homeowners associations, most complaining of improper actions by the developer. Court records show the city last year had grown impatient with the developer’s lack of action.
“At this time, any casual observer can determine that there is substantial movement of the slope,” Kirk Nakamura, an attorney for the city, wrote to developers in 1998.
“Our experts have found a real potential for a sudden landslide in the future. . . . There is the potential of a massive land failure and loss of life which would ultimately be [the developer’s] responsibility,” he added.
Yet the project was approved in the 1980s based on assurances, now suspect, that a huge earthen buttress could hold the hill in place and keep homeowners safe. The area was fortified by 1986.
City officials in Orange say they are responsible only for reviewing any technical reports that are required of developers, not for the work itself, said Wayne Winthers, assistant city attorney.
“The developer is required by the city to hire someone who is licensed by the state to do these things,” Winthers said. “That’s what they pay thousands of dollars for. We don’t have the resources or the expertise to do that.”
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Stephen McNamara, an attorney for the Vista Royale Homeowners Assn., declined to comment on the project’s history because of closed mediation now under way by order of Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert E. Thomas.
Thomas this week ordered that an Anaheim reservoir adjacent to Vista Royale be drained in response to concern from homeowners that it may pose a greater danger if the hill collapses. Thomas also ordered parties to expedite mediation.
Homeowners said they had not been told of the past landslides. Developers have contended they are not required to disclose soil conditions that have been fixed.
“We were certainly not told we were in a slide area,” said Gretchen Bereiter, who bought her home in the development 12 years ago and whose property abuts the larger of the old landslide areas. “You would think they would have told you.
“It’s a question of ‘buyer beware,’ ” she said. “If you don’t ask, they’re not going to tell you.”
Joan Gladstone, a spokeswoman for the Vista Royale developer, said the confidential mediation sessions would not allow the firm to comment on past slope defects. She said that soon after the city’s critical letter last year, the developer and city officials began working “very closely together” on a solution.
Gladstone noted that 396 Investment Co. of Newport Beach, which developed Vista Royale under its former name, the Fieldstone Co., was not the original landowner and site grader and did not develop the entire site.
That work was done in the early 1980s by former Orange County developer Gerald F. Goeden, whose firm went bankrupt in 1984. Goeden, who faced criminal charges of fraud and illegal diversion of money after the bankruptcy, was acquitted in 1989. He could not be reached for comment.
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By the mid-1980s, the graded site had been idle several years because of the bankruptcy, with water ponding on building sites and trash and debris throughout the parcel. Geologists called for the reconstruction and repair of many sites, including several of those possibly at risk now.
That repair work paved the way for the completion of Vista Royale.
Beside the two large landslides, the site had other defects, including a series of open excavation pits which had been used by contractors building the Costa Mesa Freeway, according to records.
Meanwhile, with a landslide predicted within six months, some residents are planning to move, at least temporarily.
“We’ve accepted that we’ll have to move out, that there’s no other way,” said Steven Cser, whose backyard patio and pool are already buckling. “We don’t want to jeopardize our lives if the hill does come down.”
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Past Landslides Didn’t Stop Builders
An Orange neighborhood threatened by a hillside expected to fail within six months was built on land damaged by a pair of ancient landslides, city records show. An earthen buttress was built to hold the hill in place.
Graphics reporting by BRADY MACDONALD / Los Angeles Times