Dove Canyon HOA Meets With William Lyons Homes About DCP

The past week has been an eventual one, Dove Canyon Plaza (DCP) wasn't on the city council agenda last week, but it was on the residents agenda, with hundreds in attendance and standing room only.

There has recently been multiple fluff pieces in the Coto Valley News about the Dove Canyon Plaza, they are written without authorship attribution, or without city official names who they claim were contacted. These are clearly arranged pieces to mock and minimize the concerns of residents in Dove Canyon and can be ignored, but should also be a called out for what they are. My attempts to contact the editor for the past couple of weeks have gone without response, as have attempts by others.

The series of meetings by William Lyon Homes (WLH) are required as part of the check list of items before they get to a proposal for their rezone. That includes the recent open house and the meeting last night with the Dove Canyon HOA. WLH does not own the property, but they have the right of first refusal to build on it, they continue to insist that no plans have been submitted to the city, which no one is contending, despite protestations to the contrary in the aforementioned publication. It was another full house for this presentation as well:

The WLH representative couldn't answer any specific questions, the residents were very upset that no one from Raintree Investment Corporation (RIC), the center owners, were there to answer the real questions. The entire HOA board with one exception refused to take a stand against the rezone, which lead to immediate discussions of recall. No one in the meeting was happy with what they were getting.

February 2021 is the last lease expire date in DCP and WLH claims everyone will be extended till then, except that this is already demonstrably false as leases have already not been renewed. They had no real answers for the traffic mitigation on a normal day like Super Bowl Sunday, just pointed to the emergency access points, which are not usable for normal circumstances and traffic. A glaring issue was that of some of the property lines as Trabuco Water District owns part of the access road into the center. An employee (possibly former) with personal knowledge of the matter, said they were contacted once about it over a year ago about purchasing their building and property, but never heard back again.

By rezoning, the California government can step in and push it from 392 units to 800 units, the 392 unit option that was floated at the open house is nearly 70 feet tall. The WLH follow up email from the open house said that 392 unit option was off the list, but in the meeting the WLH rep said everything was on the table, and when directly confronted, he had no idea what was going on. When questioned about parking, the WLH rep simply claimed that people wouldn't park on the street, which is only enforceable if the city were to put out signage and begin ticketing and possibly towing.

The looming question remains, why would RIC spend almost $22 million on a property that brings in about $2m per year at best? The only way for this to make financial sense is for a huge volume of less expensive dwellings. Consider that the 34 unit Dahlia Court just around the corner and also built by WLH took 2 years to sell out.

WLH have revised their estimate now to the summer for when public comments are going to be welcome, which will just drive more business out of the center, the Pet grooming center just had to move because of the uncertainty, and make no mistake, this will be the argument for the rezone, they will force as many business out as possible and claim it is a failing center. That is why this has to be stopped now, before all these people lose their jobs and livelihoods and the many years they've spent pouring their time, talent, money and sweat to build a viable business. We deserve more from our city leaders.