Judge Orders Hillside Stabilized

City officials must require a developer to stabilize a hillside that partially collapsed in 1998 during El Nino storms, severely damaging or threatening five homes, a judge has ruled.

SunCal Cos. of Anaheim helped cause the collapse while grading for the Pacific Point project, Orange County Superior Court Judge William F. McDonald ruled in a lawsuit that homeowners filed in May 2001 against the city and the developer of the 256-acre project.

Jay Curtis, forced out of his Meredith Canyon home after the landslide, said Tuesday that the ruling “means they’re going to have to make the homes stable so that they can be lived in again. In order to do that, they’ll have to put the hill back.”