O.C. Blocks Plan to Gate Private Road

The fliers dub Williams Springs Estates a “soon to be exclusive gated equestrian community” in Orange County’s Williams Canyon. Think million-dollar homes, panoramic views and 4-plus-acre lots with the Cleveland National Forest as a backyard.

But the exclusive gated community may have to do without the gates.

In a decision that has bewildered residents, county officials refuse to allow privately owned Williams Canyon Road to be gated. The reason: People who don’t live on the road and don’t pay for its upkeep may have unwittingly established the right to use it at will--by trespassing.

But the county won’t accept responsibility for the road either.

“We told the county that if they don’t want a gate there, then they should go ahead and take care of the road,” said Daniel Donahue, who has lived on Williams Canyon Road, off Santiago Canyon Road, since 1984. “They said absolutely not.”

It seems like the stuff of suburban legend, or even a tale better suited to the Wild West. Yet the “prescriptive rights” at issue are grounded in state land-use law. People can acquire rights to a property merely by using it without consent for several years.

Such disputes are not new to the region.

Cases typically involve shared use of a driveway, or someone blocking off a public road or trail that meanders through their private property. The California Coastal Commission has an entire Web page aimed at educating the public on how to preserve prescriptive rights--and for landowners on how to prevent them from being created.

Past cases have involved someone making the claim in court. No claims have been filed in Williams Canyon. The would-be gatekeepers even say they would gladly let anyone with a legitimate claim pass through.

Yet the county is refusing to budge.

So canyon dwellers have forged an unlikely alliance to fight back. In a region where rugged locals pride themselves on independence, generally scorning homeowner associations and the aesthetics of master-planned neighborhoods, many are rallying around blueprints for a $100,000 gate intended to protect a dozen future luxury homes, each with its own theme name, such as “Stonebrook Homesite.”

The lots are in the half-million-dollar range and come with plans for sprawling luxury homes. Buyers will have to plunk down another half-million to get a house built.

The handful of residents already living on Williams Canyon Road see the fancy, landscaped gate as a boon to their own home values, and one that also would keep speeders, thieves and others out. Moreover, developer RDH Group of Irvine has agreed to pay almost the entire cost.

Others in the canyon area see the county’s rejection of a gate as an affront to the rights of property owners. They are growing frustrated with the disrespect they say day-trippers have been showing their neighborhoods of late, and gated communities--once dirty words in these canyons--are starting to seem like a good idea.

“We attract a number of urban visitors,” the nonprofit Inter-Canyon League states in a letter endorsing the gate. “Speeding is a major issue, especially when roads are narrow and often provide the only place for our children to play.”

County officials remain mum, with a self-imposed gag order on the gate flap while the appeal process plays out.

But an official close to the fracas, who asked not to be named, said: “There are lots of people who use that road who are not property owners there. They might be dog walkers or people who drive down to access hiking trails.”

And those activities may have given the interlopers rights they don’t even know about, the official said.

Gate proponents point out that the county’s decision effectively makes the narrow stretch of pavement on private property a public road--without payment for condemnation or maintenance costs.

“We’re saying if you have a legal easement, come on through, welcome neighbor,” Donahue said. “Nobody has objected to us putting up this gate. Yet the county is stopping us anyway.”

Some experts say they would be surprised if the courts backed the county in the end.

“The county is way exceeding its jurisdiction,” said George Lefcoe, a professor of real estate law at USC. “What they are doing is purporting to recognize a nonexistent claim. It’s a claim nobody has asserted.

“For them to suggest they have an obligation to honor these rights is absurd.”

And even if someone were to step up and successfully make a claim in court, that wouldn’t be cause to block the gate, he said.

It would merely require the gatekeepers to give those people access to the property.

RDH seems confident enough that the county is wrong. The developer is continuing to market the lots as a soon-to-be-gated community.

“It’s got a drive-around island you can circle before entering,” site superintendent Gary Curtiss said of the gate plans. “The whole thing was designed by a canyon resident.”