Growing Pains in San Clemente

They fought growth in the 1980s. Then for much of the 1990s, the city of San Clemente was in such dire financial straits that most development ground to a halt.

Now, with a new sense of control and its finances in order, the bedroom community with its steep, winding streets and spectacular ocean views is in the midst of an unprecedented growth spurt.

With several major housing and commercial projects underway and plans for an upscale outlet mall pending, the new projects would represent a nearly fourfold increase in commercial space. And with a new freeway interchange and three housing developments in the works--including Talega, the city’s largest residential development ever--San Clemente is bracing for 32% population growth over the next 10 to 12 years.

About three miles from the ocean, out of sight from the beachy downtown shopping district, the new Talega community’s first residents began moving in last week. With an 18-hole public golf course, a new school and some 4,400 homes expected over the next decade or so, the upscale Talega will represent the single largest increase in the city’s population to date. The community’s developers will host a public grand opening celebration Feb. 26 and 27.

And at the Laing Forster Ranch, where models will open in late spring and the first move-ins are expected by the end of summer, another 1,200 homes over some 553 acres are on the way. That community will officially open its welcome center this weekend.

When all of the pending projects are complete, the city will have reached what’s known as build-out.

Pockets of resistance to the new developments remain, especially when it comes to the dramatic increase in commercial space. Opposition is particularly strong among environmentalists and along the sloping downtown shopping street Avenida Del Mar, where some shop owners view the coming outlet mall as a death sentence for their small businesses.

“It’s like taking a piece of pie and cutting it 100 ways instead of four,” said Joan Gibbons, nearing retirement after running the Del Mar Gourmet Coffee store she has owned for 15 years.

Yet many residents--and the city government--think it’s high time San Clemente stops losing valuable sales tax dollars to surrounding cities.

“I think the city actually needs a little bit of change,” said Kathy Wareham, a three-year resident of San Clemente, as she carried packages to her car from the new Spanish Colonial-style Wal-Mart on a recent afternoon. “There are a lot more younger people living here now, and San Clemente doesn’t really have businesses that cater to that generation.”

In many ways, the little Spanish-style village by the sea has come full circle, from opposing growth as a threat to its quality of life to a recognition that the city can’t survive without it. In the 1980s, residents passed two anti-growth initiatives. One was thrown out by the courts. The other, a 1988 initiative known as Measure B, limits the number of new homes that can be built in a single year to 500.

Slow-Growth’s Price: Little Sales Tax Revenue

In the early 1990s, as the state began siphoning away property tax revenues which had previously gone to local governments and spending it on education, cities came to depend increasingly on sales tax revenues. San Clemente, housing-heavy but job-poor, didn’t have any sales tax revenues to speak of.

“The city was left with a very unstable situation,” said City Manager Michael W. Parness. “We didn’t have the revenue to support even our basic services because we had a very strong residential base with no commercial or retail revenues.”

As of the late 1990s, the city ranked 28th in the county out of 31 cities in sales tax revenues, Parness said.

All of that could change if the city has its way.

In addition to the Wal-Mart, the Plaza Pacifica development east of Interstate 5 will eventually encompass 435,000 square feet of shopping and restaurants, including the Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse.

Additionally, the controversial proposal for the 250-acre property known as Marblehead Coastal, owned by Irvine developer Lusk Co., would call for 670,000 square feet of commercial space and 438 homes. Current plans for the property, the city’s last undeveloped stretch of coastal land, include an upscale outlet mall, ocean-view restaurants, a mega bookstore, a 21-screen movie complex and a hotel with about 120 rooms and conference space.

The site has proved a source of controversy for about 20 years. Previous plans have run the gamut, including a proposal to build the Nixon presidential library there, and more recently, a resort hotel and golf course.

Environmentalists fiercely oppose plans for the hilly expanse of sage and chaparral off Avenida Pico just north of Pacific Coast Highway, which includes nearly 6 1/2 acres of environmentally sensitive wetlands.

In early January, the California Coastal Commission ruled for the second time that the developer’s building application was incomplete.

Lusk Co. President Jim Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.

The developer “wants to totally fill in all the canyons and wetlands and make it as flat as Kansas,” said six-year resident George Hubner, an activist with the group San Clemente Citizens for Responsible Development. “We believe our City Council got railroaded and permitted something it shouldn’t have permitted. . . . The development in San Clemente is too rapid and too big. The City Council is just looking for tax dollars.”

Some Shops Don’t Savor Competition

Others who hope the project never sees the light of day are easy to find along Avenida Del Mar, the old-fashioned downtown shopping street that slopes gently above the coast. Many of these family-owned shops will suffer in the shadows of an outlet mall, opponents say.

Anita Hanlon, a clerk at the Book Site a few doors away, is emphatic about her feelings toward the mall, which would include a giant bookstore she predicts would close in no time the 41-year-old independent shop she staffs.

“We don’t need it,” Hanlon said. “We’ve got plenty of vacancies right here. . . . The shops that we have now are struggling. We don’t need more competition.”

Other business owners say they would welcome the new shoppers a new mall would bring to the city.

Jim Schroeder, president of the Downtown Business Assn., said he understands why some retailers feel threatened. But Schroeder, who has owned a used-book store on Del Mar called the Village Book Exchange with his wife, Mary, for 18 years, said he doesn’t believe the town’s shops will suffer because they offer a small-town charm and the kind of personal service that won’t be matched by any corporate competitors.

“Del Mar is kind of unique,” Schroeder said. “I don’t think it’s going to hurt too much.”

With so many developers eager to build at one time, the city had a challenge on its hands but also an opportunity, City Manager Parness said. In bargaining with the various developers, city officials were able to get them to pay for a new freeway interchange off Interstate 5 at Avenida Vista Hermosa. An 8,000-square-foot senior center is slated for downtown, a new school will be constructed in Talega, and land for several new parks has been set aside.

“If you have them all going at once, you can sit the developers down and solve problems as a group,” Parness said. “None of those guys on their own could build an interchange, but we needed it desperately.”

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Growth Spurt

After decades of negligible growth, the sleepy city of San Clemente is poised for major increases in residential and commercial development.

Source: San Clemente, Talega