Whispering Hills Draws an Outcry

Mark Nielsen watched as the character of historic San Juan Capistrano changed before his eyes. He saw chain restaurants, plans for big freeway interchanges and one planned community after another.

Finally, when he heard about Whispering Hills--a 356-home tract planned in the foothills that rise on the east side of town--he decided he had seen enough. Nielsen and others formed Citizens Against Uncontrolled San Juan Expansion, advocates for stopping or slowing growth in the canyons and hills near town.

Tuesday night, the citizens’ group took its fight against Whispering Hills to City Hall, urging planning commissioners to reject both versions of the plans that have been submitted. Commissioners took no action but set a vote on the issue for April 9.

One development scenario calls for a 356-home community off Ortega Highway. A second calls much a smaller tract--no more than 193 homes--and a new high school.

Nielsen’s group thinks the developer, Dennis Gage of Whispering Hills LLC, is using the promise of a new high school--the city has gone without one for decades--as a “lever” to get the controversial housing project approved.

“People say you can’t be against the development without being against the high school,” said Nielsen, a software executive who has lived in San Juan for 13 years. “That’s not true. I don’t know of anyone who’s anti-high school. But do we teach our kids that the ends justify the means or do we look at it holistically?”

Phil Schwartze, a consultant on the Whispering Hills project, said the environmental group has been “shameless” in its attempts to block development. He denied that the school was added just to sweeten the deal.

“We’re home builders, the school came to us,” Schwartze said “We’re trying to accommodate them.”

Tuesday night, Nielsen urged city officials to consider a scaled-down version--103 homes and a high school--that would spare one of the two canyons that would be impacted by Whispering Hills.

Dave Doomey, associate superintendent with Capistrano Unified School District, said as long as the plan includes a high school, he’ll be happy.

“By 2005, San Juan Capistrano will have 1,600 kids that need to be served,” Doomey said. “This school is the linchpin of our strategy to ease overcrowding in our schools.”

Nielsen contends that the Whispering Hills project would have been doomed without the high school as an incentive to win city approval.

In its response last month to environmental documents prepared for both versions of Whispering Hills, the environmental group said the development would worsen traffic, destroy pristine back country and endanger wildlife.

“The intensity of this development impacts our quality of life and the character of San Juan,” Nielsen said.

Schwartze said the fact that Nielsen’s group is offering an alternative development scheme undermines their very argument.

“They say ‘You’re going to destroy the biology, the geology’ and then they say if you can reduce units, that’s all fine,’” Schwartze said. “It’s just a shameless approach.”

Once everyone has a say, Doomey believes all sides will be happy with the end result.

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for all parties to be successful here,” Doomey said.

“I think we’ll have a well-thought-out plan that ends with a new high school.”