Another One Tumbles

LAGUNA NIGUEL — A section of a third home atop a crumbling man-made hill toppled Friday into a deep ravine, even as evacuated residents of the imperiled Crown Cove condominium complex below scrambled to pull belongings out of harm’s way.

Two houses tumbled the previous day as a terraced slope partially collapsed. It was what residents of the condos at the base of the hill and their lawyers and experts had feared for years: that the slope was unstable and could threaten their lives.

“I can’t wait around for anything else to happen,” condo resident Sandra Paulin said, packing up her belongings with the help of volunteers from her church. “I have to do what I have to do.”

Residents in 21 of the complex’s 41 units have been evacuated as a man-made slope that rises over the condos and supports more expensive houses in the Niguel Summit shifted and then failed. The first two hilltop houses toppled early Thursday and five condos were upended.

A third ridge-top house was predicted to collapse overnight, but held firm until midafternoon Friday when some condo residents, arms full of boxed belongings, looked up to see half of the house on Via Estoril fall into the ravine.

“I heard it, I looked up, and it came down,” said Mike Follmer, a racing enthusiast who was moving box after box of Porsche memorabilia from his condo at the time. “I had put $40,000 into this place--extras. Now, it isn’t worth anything.”

Geologists and lawyers who have battled in court for nearly four years continued to sort through a costly mess Friday. Condo dwellers have accused the developers of Niguel Summit of negligence, and one developer said buyouts of affected homeowners are a possibility.

Developers also are being sued by owners of the three collapsed Niguel Summit houses and several others nearby.

Condo dweller Mark Parker said that until the financial mess is sorted out, he will have to pay necessary moving bills.

“For the time being, it’s coming out of our pockets--and they’re not that deep right now,” Parker said, loading an artificial Christmas tree, a child’s bicycle and armloads of clothing into his white Ford pickup from the condo he and his companion are abandoning after three years.

Parker and Annalee Cappello were helped by relatives as they boxed and bagged his baseball bats, books and clothing. Later, they also must deal with appliances, heavy furniture and a piano.

“We never thought we’d be evicted like this,” Parker said. “We thought if the mountain moved, it would take out the last couple of units. Then, it shifted this way.”

“It’s one of life’s little adventures,” said Cappello, hoisting a basket of clothing and forcing a smile.

Condo owners and their representatives must decide in coming weeks what the future of the community, not even 20 years old, will be. Of the 21 evacuated units, nine must be leveled and the remainder may need to be rebuilt or dismantled, residents said.

“The way things stand right now, there’s a lot of hill still up there, and we don’t know what it’s going to do,” said Mike DeStefano, the president of the condo association who was forced to leave his residence in December, with residents of four other units.

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Follmer, whose home was threatened but not destroyed, said the disaster would represent an opportunity for the developers of Niguel Summit to buy out the condo owners and avoid further litigation.

“In the long run, it would be cheaper for them to write a check for $8 million or $9 million and then own all these homes,” Follmer said. “That way, they could fix the hill and not have all these homeowners on their back.”

Residents are suing Hon Development, Niguel Summit’s master developer, and Capital Pacific Holdings Inc., which owns the J.M. Peters Co., the home builder.

An official of Hon Development said Friday the firm has concluded negotiations to purchase, on its own, five condominium units that were evacuated in December when the hillside first began shifting. Further buyouts are being considered in conjunction with other Niguel Summit developers, said Robert Smart, Hon’s vice president for finance.

“Peters and Hon have been discussing this with regard to other units as well,” Smart said. “We haven’t come to terms yet, but we are discussing it seriously.”

Meanwhile, he said Hon is setting aside money to pay for relocation and alternative housing costs for both condo dwellers and Niguel Summit homeowners displaced by the slope failure.

Tom Miller, attorney for the condo owners, said Hon and Peters haven’t signified an increased willingness to settle the suit, and said he plans to ask that a scheduled September trial date in Orange County Superior Court be moved up.

Smart said Hon’s technical experts believe the hill failure was not the result of the man-made portion of the formation, but the result of natural formations beneath the surface. He said thousands of tons of fill used by developers to build up the slope contributed weight which, combined with the natural formations and large quantities of rainfall, hastened the slope’s shift.

“The dirt that was added also added weight to the slope,” Smart said. “What was not anticipated was that that weight would activate the slide plane.”