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CITY of DANA POINT
Retrenches in War Against Headlands Owners,
Despite Costs
DANA POINT - The City of Dana Point has decided to defy the order
of the Superior Court, and continue processing their own plans
for the Headlands property instead of the plans of the owner,
which the City had been ordered to do last December. Despite
losing $10,000 in legal fees in just the last 30 days, not to
mention losing the appeal, the City is retrenching in its war
with the Headlands owners, by going forward with plans to amend
the General Plan.
Judge John Wooley said that the City could not change its General
Plan at the same time it was going to approve a specific plan
for the Headlands. Wooley ordered the City to consider the landowner's
plan for the property, and to stop processing the plan developed
by Community Development. According to Ed Knight, the planning
czar of Dana Point, the City still has the option to change its
General Plan, a city's Master Plan, as it relates to the Headlands.
Despite growing public concern that the City is carrying on a
feud with the landowners, which is being financed by the bottomless
money pit provided to the City through taxes, the City decided
to carry on the conflict by moving to amend the General Plan,
to circumvent the court's order. Amending the General Plan, which
would down-zone the property to accommodate the City's plan instead
of the landowner's plan, would render the Superior Court's ruling
moot.
On Friday, March 5th, the proposed amendment was made
available at city hall, dashing all hopes for a mediated settlement.
The Planning Commission will review the amendment tonight, March
17th, and the City Council will vote on it by March 23rd.
The owners of the property, however, are determined not to be
steamrolled. Kevin Darnell, vice president of Headlands Reserve,
LLC, 50% owners of the Headlands, said that even if the City makes
the change, the game will not be over. "There may be issues
we would challenge for any number of reasons. We believe their
EIR (Environmental Impact Report) is inadequate… their plan
still needs a local coastal program amendment, so there is still
a lot of processing to be done."
Darnell said that even if the City successfully amends the General
Plan, he believes that the City will lose in the long run. "Let's
say they are successful. Now they have a zoning program that
for us is not economically feasible, and now they owe us a whole
bunch of money. [The City's] plan can't be built… We think
this is the basis for a takings lawsuit." A "takings"
lawsuit is an action that seeks compensation because the government
has illegally expropriated private property. Darnell indicated
that the City's down-zoning of the Headlands will set the stage
for the next round of legal actions, which will the cost the taxpayers
an unknown amount of money, something that doesn't seem to concern
those most adamantly opposed to developing the Headlands because
they live immediately adjacent to it. However, for residents
who don't live in the area, interest in the controversy may be
waning. The City, of course, is aware of this, due to the fact that in 1994 a referendum to overturn the City's then-General Plan to locate 370 homes and a 400-room hotel on the Point, drew crowds to the voting booth, much to the shock of the mandarins in the Planning Dept. They may be over-confident in the apathy of the people of Dana Point, however, who might recognize in the practices of the Planning Dept., threats to their own properties. Community Development has a plan for every square inch of Dana Point, and they have unlimited funds to litigate property owners into submission, whether the land in question is a five-plex on Olinda Drive, or the Headlands property. SOURCE: Information for this article was derived from the 11 March, 1999, issue of the Dana Point News, from an article entitled, "City Makes Play for Property," by Dennis Kaiser. |
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