Slide-Threatened Homes Hang in Limbo
Grass goes uncut. Driveways sit empty. Windows are shuttered, some boarded up. A few hardy residents try to carry on with life as usual, but most have left, fleeing an impending disaster. Those who have moved out drop by periodically to check on their property and the hill that looms nearby. Everybody waits.
As negotiations between a developer and owners of 15 homes in imminent danger of being swallowed up by a catastrophic landslide in Orange broke down last week, residents said they are trying to take it in stride but admit the waiting is taking its toll.
They have accepted the idea that 15 homes must be destroyed in order to raze the dangerous hillside and protect the homes below it. Now comes the latest turn of events: Negotiations over compensation for those 15 houses have been declared by both sides to be on the verge of collapse.
“It’s an emotional teeter-totter,” said Mark Isham, whose home at the bottom of the hill faces severe damage should there be a landslide. “One day we get good news. . . . Then, we go through stretches of, ‘Oh, no, here we go again.’ ”
Each snag in the process, as more than 30 lawyers haggle over a monetary settlement, brings the community one step closer to disaster, Isham and others point out.
All sides have agreed that flattening the 180-foot slope is for the best. But the stalled talks have delayed the razing, leaving the entire neighborhood in harm’s way.
“We don’t know what they’ve been offered,” said Cheryl Davidson, whose 10-year-old home faces probable damage if the hill collapses. “If it’s anything reasonable, take it. There’s more than them involved.”
But the owners of the doomed houses contend that the offer from 396 Investment Co., formerly known as Fieldstone Co., is anything but reasonable.
“Not only does it not make sense, but it’s insulting,” said Larry Friedman, one of the homeowners.
Representatives of 396 Investment Co. stand by their offer, contending that it is based on a professional appraisal.
Residents Alerted by City 2 Years Ago
Two years ago, city officials were alerted by residents of Peralta Pointe and Vista Royale, neighborhoods at the top and bottom respectively of the 180-foot slope, of cracking sidewalks and driveways and slow shifting of the earth underneath them.
Experts in February declared that the hillside could collapse any moment. Homeowners were told to remove irreplaceable items from their houses and to be prepared to evacuate on short notice.
Many elected not to gamble and simply moved out, alarmed by the ever-widening cracks in the pavement and the chunks of their backyards that were sinking into the earth.
“They told us it could happen at any time,” said Catherine Chen, who moved her family to a rented home in Chino.
Isham was among a handful who elected to stay, believing that if the hillside gives way, the damage will not be life-threatening, or there will be enough warning for him, his wife and his two young daughters to escape.
Experts have said that there will be a sudden acceleration of the earth 24 hours before the collapse.
Negotiations began in January for what those in the neighborhood hoped would be a permanent solution. After five months of regular meetings with an arbitrator, attorneys signed a tentative agreement Monday to pay the 10 Vista Royale homeowners a total of $4.2 million. But talks stalled over what the developer should pay the five Peralta Pointe homeowners.
Both neighborhoods emerged from the county’s housing boom of the late 1980s. Peralta Pointe is a gated community of five custom-built mansions that sits atop the hill, overlooking Vista Royale.
Dozens of lawsuits from homeowners have now been filed against 396 Investment Co., charging that the company did not properly solidify the slope.
Representatives of the company, however, argue they were not the original graders of the slope. That work was done during the early 1980s by a company that went bankrupt. But the developer has acknowledged partial responsibility and entered into negotiations to compensate the homeowners.
Four Homeowners Offered $4.1 Million
The developer offered to pay four of the Peralta Pointe homeowners a total of $4.1 million, significantly more than the $3.4 million price tag put on the homes by the company’s appraiser, said Jason Grange, a spokesman for 396 Investment Co.
Friedman owns a 5,600-square-foot mansion with unobstructed views of the surrounding county below.
His home alone would list for at least $1.6 million in today’s strong housing market, said Friedman, who runs his own real estate brokerage.
The four homeowners are collectively asking for $6.6 million, a price the developer considers inflated, Grange said. Talks have also stalled with the fifth Peralta Pointe homeowner.
Meanwhile, the five homeowners in Peralta Pointe, who had all remained in their homes despite the danger, were given three days’ notice to evacuate last week by the city of Orange because of a sewer line break and “extreme peril” from the impending slide.
Friedman, his wife and their three children moved to a 600-square-foot hotel room in Garden Grove.
Clara Stevens, a neighbor of the Friedman’s, flew back Wednesday from a trip to Washington, D.C., upon hearing of the evacuation order.
She spent all day Thursday telephoning hotels and apartment complexes, “trying to find some place for my family to live.”
To make things worse, Stevens is in the midst of chemotherapy treatment for cancer and dealing with illnesses of both of her elderly parents.
The last few months, she said, have been a lesson in faith.
“Before, we felt very much in control of our lives,” she said. “Now, we don’t feel like we have control over anything.”
Looming over everything is the possibility that the city of Orange may elect to take things into its own hands and demolish the homes by exercising emergency police powers.
California law allows on rare occasions for cities to exercise police powers to destroy property without having to compensate, said Wayne Whinthers, assistant city attorney in Orange.
As every day passes, the city considers it more seriously, Whinthers said.
“We’re discussing it every day,” he said.
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Peralta Pointe and Vista Royale: Homes on the Brink
Residents who own homes on or near an Orange hillside expected to fail at any moment are awaiting the outcome of negotiations over a proposed razing of the hills that would save some of their homes. In order to flatten the hill, 15 homes would have to be demolished, but more than a dozen others threatened by the slide would be saved. Many residents in the area have already left to be on the safe side.
