Coto Residents Call Safety Measures Unsafe

Efforts to catch speeders in the gated community of Coto de Caza have residents seeing red, as speed limits have been raised, crosswalks eliminated and stop signs yanked from a street corner, all in the name of safety.

But there’s a good reason for the changes, board members of the community’s largest homeowners’ association say: They’re needed to get police to patrol the community for speeders.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department will issue traffic tickets inside Coto’s gates only if the roads conform to California vehicle codes, Sheriff’s Sgt. Matthew Barr said.

Resident Chris Hebard dismissed as “silly” the notion of raising speed limits and removing stop signs to ensure safer streets.

“The board is saying, ‘We’re going to create a dangerous situation so we can issue citations.’ The purpose is not to issue citations but to create a safe situation,” he said.

CZ Master Assn., the community’s largest, removed a stop sign several weeks ago at Coto de Caza Drive and Via Peralta, a T-shaped intersection where the community’s main artery meets a residential street.

Without the stop sign, the “blind” intersection on winding Coto de Caza Drive is particularly perilous, resident John Harper said.

Making matters worse, some residents say, the board raised the speed limit on four-lane Coto de Caza Drive from 35 mph to 50 mph about six months ago.

Though the community has no contract yet with the Sheriff’s Department, it has spent the past year readying its roads for the possibility. That means raising speed limits, eliminating crosswalks and removing the stop sign at Via Peralta, all of which did not meet county engineers’ requirements, board member Joseph Morabito said.

“We’re on the homeowners’ side in this issue, but there isn’t anything the board can do,” he said. “All we’ve done . . . is to implement the laws of the County of Orange. When less-emotional minds can ponder all this, they’ll see the board did all it could do.”

The irony of the situation is not lost on Morabito. “As illogical as it may seem to raise speed limits and take out stop signs to presumably get more enforcement, we’re just trying to do what’s best for the community,’ he said.

But that is little comfort to some residents, who say the loss of the stop sign coupled with the new higher speed limit make it nearly impossible for residents to leave home without inching into oncoming traffic.

The group planned to take its case to a homeowners association board meeting late Wednesday, threatening to sue individual board members alleging reckless endangerment unless the stop sign goes back up.

A similar controversy arose last summer when the board agreed to remove speed bumps along Coto de Caza Drive under orders from the Orange County Fire Authority, which said the devices slowed emergency response time.