DANA POINT-The "architect of Dana Point Redevelopment," Ed Knight, first and only director of Community Development, took the opportunity of the City's tenth year anniversary, to reflect on his work at the City of Dana Point. Knight reputedly masterminded Redevelopment in other southern California cities, which was the reason why he was hired on by Dana Point, after its incorporation in 1989. Redevelopment is part of the federal Urban Renewal program, which essentially enabled city governments to condemn property they wanted to "redevelop," using federal matching funds. While the early effort to launch redevelopment was stopped in Dana Point, the program nationwide has had a controversial and rocky history, where local governments have used it as an instrument to control property in their boundaries. Low income housing would be removed and replaced by middle income and luxury housing, in effect evicting poor people without due process, and without adequately finding solutions to the dislocation it caused.

Knight had the task of hiring the first Planning Department, but instead of calling it Planning, which suggested control of people's property, in an Orwellian twist, the new department was called "Community Development." Knight explained in a recent interview, "It was a very interesting experience, but I don't think I would want to do it again." That may be, however, because he has put together a plan as to how every property owner in Dana Point may be allowed to use his or her property, and at any time that someone comes to the city for approval of a plan that does not agree with Knight's plan, they run smack into Knight's department, which is like hitting a brick wall.

The first general plan was so controversial that despite the holding of 43 "workshops," a substantial part of the population tried to force a referendum on the plan, which was only stopped because of a legal technicality. The people did not have the time to correct for the deficiency in their paperwork, so Knight's general plan went into effect, despite large-scale objections on the part of the people of Dana Point. To most people, of course, workshops infer that public input is actually accepted; in the version of "workshops" put on by the Community Development department, they were really just attempts to tell the people how things were going to be, they were publicity stunts.

Redevelopment is a dirty word in Dana Point because the obvious intention of the City in redeveloping the so-called "Lantern District," was to get rid of the stump of resistance that exists in what was the original Dana Point. The people who live there own their homes, and have owned them for decades. There are also apartments that house low and middle income people, who the city looks upon as undesirables because they don't add much to the city's taxable base. With one fell swoop, they would have removed both obstacles, and replaced the aging homes and apartments with luxury hotels, which the City gets most of its revenues from (from a Tourist Tax on hotel and motel beds). Using the power of the city to condemn property under eminent domain, it would have been able to remove all those homeowners who were reluctant to part with the cherished memories of the homes where they raised their families.

Redevelopment was opposed with such fury, that the City backed down, the only time in its existence that the bureaucracy has ever backed down. In the aftermath there was much finger-pointing, but the bottom-line reality was that the population of Dana Point was under assault from the bureaucracy of its own city, which realized that all they had to do was wait. The majority of the original population of Dana Point is already senior citizens, and by waiting them out, the people who most powerfully object to being forced out would pass away from natural forces. Also, the staffers Knight recruited also had backgrounds in redevelopment. These people are still in their comfortable positions, at the expense of the people of Dana Point, and it is they who whisper into the ear of every city council, so that no matter what person sits on the council, it is at the recommendations of the staff that the council acts. Due to the resistance of this staff to dealing with the wishes of the population of Dana Point, the city has spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and attorneys fees defending the city against its own people!

But for anyone who thinks that Redevelopment is dead, take another look, because it has been reborn in the guise of the Town Center project, a ten million dollar project that is adjacent to the area of the original Redevelopment Agency. After that project is completed, there will be increasing pressure to revive redevelopment, even if the planners are forced to call it something else. Yet while the planning czar and his staff are waiting for Dana Point residents who oppose their plans to either die or move away, their next biggest challenge came in the form of the 121-acre Headlands project, the actual Point of Dana Point. In 1994 the city council approved a plan for up to 370 homes on the last vestige of rural south Orange County. The Chandler family, of Los Angeles Times fame, were involved, which turned into a scandal that family did not want to be embroiled in, after years of influence peddling in the development of Dana Point when it was under county control. A city-wide referendum overturned the city-approved plan. Since then the property has been caught up in a snare of lawsuits, that the city is more than happy to perpetuate, knowing that it has endless funds to tap, while property owners can only finance a legal defense for so long. At the height of the turmoil, the Chandlers bailed out of the project, and a new owner came along, who drastically reduced the numbers of houses to be built, the size of the hotel/spa proposed for the site, and even included a public space. But because this did not meet the plan of the Knight regime, it met the same deathly silence that has killed so many plans of property owners in Dana Point.

Yet even the Planning Czar is not infallible. The Superior Court was aghast at the sheer arrogance of the Community Development department, because they would not accept a copy of the Headlands owners' plan, to even LOOK at it. The city was busy developing a plan of its own, without consulting the owner, and refused to look at the owners' plans. The judge scolded Community Development officials for their attitude. And even though a Superior Court judge ORDERED the city to look at the owners' plan, the city is still appealing the decision, because the city does not want to even have to LOOK at the owners' plan!

In 1991, Knight's planning department forced the city's only homeless service to shut its doors, even though the non-profit service was not given a fair or legal chance to present an application for a Conditional Use Permit. Community Development literally railroaded the soup kitchen and shelter out of town. Then it shut down another non-profit service, that had existed before the City of Dana Point was incorporated, Straight Ahead. When a third attempt to feed the poor was set up in an abandoned building by the freeway onramp, it too was stampeded out of town, even though the building was in a perfect place for a social service, not being around shopping centers, schools, or homes. But in 1993, the City built a giant sports park on the Dana Hills High School grounds, for $1 million. Today, the City of Dana Point has met none of its statutory requirements to provide services for people on fixed and low incomes. Knight's tenure has been a tragedy for Dana Point, and someday a majority of the city council members have got to recognize the mistake of allowing his tenure to go on indefinitely. According to state law, the city council is supposed to run the city; but in fact, the Community Development department runs the city, using nothing but a rubber stamp from the city council.

SOURCE: Written exclusively for Dana Point On-Line by CNS. Data derived from Dana Point News, 31 December, 1998, "City's Growing Pains Began 10 Years Ago," by Dennis Kaiser.

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