During the 1970s, all the marinas up and down the California coast
became central in the massive illegal drug trade. Enormous shipments
of contraband were often brought north in unsuspected pleasure boats,
unloaded under the cover of a thick layer of coastal fog. One of the
most characteristic sounds of Dana Point is the sound of the fog horn,
warning sailors to look out for the reefs.
The original community of Dana Point had its origins in a housing
development scheme in the 1920s, part of which can still be seen
in the unfinished cement foundation for a hotel and bar that rests
above the Dana Point Harbor, and which today is the centerpiece of
a park. To get a real idea of how unrealistic expectations were
back then, the bar was going to seat 1,500, but the hotel would only
have beds for about 150 people. A tunnel was bored through the
hill, down to what today is the Harbor, but it has been boarded up
for years as unsafe. (The old ruins were always attractive to local
teenagers, eager to explore).
The original plan for Dana Point was for a Spanish-style town with
wide streets named after "Lanterns," and when the streets were laid
out, there were actual lanterns for street lights, modeled on the old
sailor's kerosene lanterns. This is still part of the community,
in street names like Street of the Golden Lantern, Street of the Blue
Lantern, and even a recent newcomer, Street of the Crystal Lantern.
The first homes were in the early California style, which was white
adobe with red tile roofs. One of those first homes still stands on
Blue Lantern, about a block away from Selva Rd. Also, the location
where today the Renaissance Cafe is situated, was used by the
developers to sell lots in Dana Point. Potential buyers would come
in from Los Angeles, and after a cozy meal, one of the locals would
explain how luxuriant the area was, in the hopes of attracting sales.
Then, the Stockmarket Crash of 1929 hit and wiped out the developer,
and put a halt to all plans. The hotel and bar were never finished,
and most of the homes were not built until decades later.
Other local remains of the original 1923 Dana Point development can
be found at the lookout point at the end of Ruby Lantern (on top of the
bluff overlooking the Harbor). And the Spanish-style office complex
at the northern-most place where Pacific Coast Hwy. splits off, and
becomes two one-way only streets. Additionally, the building behind
A's Burgers is also the remains of an old gas station, that was
probably associated with the old Villa motel, both being built
in the 1920s.
In the 1970s, Dana Point was a sleepy little backwater village. It
extended inland no further than Selva Rd., which did not go all the
way through to the Pacific Coast Highway, as it does today; instead
it dead-ended on Chula Vista. When Dana Hills High School was built
around 1971-72, it was a tremendous innovation (even though the school
looked and felt like a Mexican prison). The corrupt Board of Supervisors
had big plans for Dana Point, including a six-lane highway that
would plow through the rural community down to the Harbor, that took
most of the local residents by surprise. (Five of the Board members
during the 1970s served prison terms for corruption, largely at the
hands of real estate developers; rumors had it that one of the big
landholders in Dana Point, Avco, was owned by the Mafia, but this
was probably an urban legend). One of the largest current landowners
in Dana Point is the Chandler family, majority owners of the
Los Angeles Times. They have felt free to use their clout to meddle
in local politics for years, but none of it ever seems to show up in
the newspapers. (During the 70s, there were five independent newspapers
serving the south Orange County area; today, in 1997, there are only
two, the L.A. Times and the O.C. Register having bought out all the
independents).
Twenty years ago, Dana Point was not "built out," as the Planners call it
when a community no longer has raw land left within its city limits. Locals
sought incorporation five times, in order to secure local control, but
each time the county nixed the plan. Then, in 1989, once all the land
had been essentially built out, incorporation was allowed, but really,
all the big money had already been made. When Golden Lantern was finally
opened up between Selva Rd. and Crown Valley Parkway, the hills were
literally cluttered with new, unsold homes, as far as the eye could see.
It was not hard to see that the plans that got approved prior to incorporation
amounted to a billion-dollar development. What finally became the City
of Dana Point was a stitched together community that was essentially
several well-established communities that were forced to co-exist.
Parts of Laguna Niguel were cut off from that City, and were attached
to Dana Point (which a former mayor of Mission Viejo personally informed
the author, took place because the community leaders of Laguna Niguel
did something to irritate the then-Supervisor General Riley, who had
the political power to coerce LAFCO to approve the conveyance of Monarch
Beach and Monarch Bay to Dana Point, effectively cutting off Laguna
Niguel's access to the ocean.)
Then to add insult to injury, once the City of Dana Point was formed
a group of "carpetbaggers" (recent arrivals to Dana Point),
got elected to the City Council, determined to exploit the economic
opportunity that was offered to cities through what is commonly
referred to as "Urban Renewal." Through the cities' power to seize
private property by eminent domain, the first city council cooked up
a scheme that virtually amounted to the seizure of that property
located in the "Lantern District," under the Redevelopment statutes.
The bottom line was that Redevelopment was an out-and-out land-grab
that would have been financed by the Federal Government, enabling
the bureaucracy of the newly incorporated City of Dana Point to
literally displace the entire original population of Old Dana Point.
(What is never brought up is the fact that the entire Planning
Department, misleadingly called "Community Development," led
by Ed Knight, and employing such luminaries as Kit Fox and Angela
Duzich, were selected because of their background in Redevelopment
schemes in other southern California cities.)
The scheme for Redevelopment of the so-called "Lantern District" stirred
up a hornet's nest of popular opposition, and the schemers had to
temporarily drop their plans; but the City never fired all those
city planners, whose backgrounds make them ideal for implementing
Redevelopment at some time in the future.
Today, Dana Point stands on the brink of a new age. It can go forward,
or it can go backwards, it's all up to the people of Dana Point. At least,
some of the negative trends were somewhat arrested, when several
long-time residents were finally elected to the City Council. But, of
course, it takes more than politics to turn rows of houses into
a neighborhood; a community. It takes hope.