City may demolish 12 homes
Barbara Diamond
The city has offered to pick up the costs to tear down Bluebird
Canyon homes that must be demolished and removed due to irreparable
damage caused by the June 1 landslide.
Affected homeowners must consent to the demolition, and will be
asked to agree to turn over to the city their insurance demolition
benefits, if any.
“I am trying to work up a quickie agreement that gives the city
the consent of the homeowners to demolish the homes and let us do so
in a way that would allow the homeowners to recover property,” city
slide coordinator Bob Burnham said. “It takes more time and more care
if personal belongings are recovered and adds substantially to the
costs.
“We would ask the property owners to assign the city the
demolition costs if they are covered by insurance.”
If the homeowner is not covered, Burnham said the city will
finance the demolitions, which helps all of the affected homeowners.
“We can’t winterize the slope and protect any property until the
structures are demolished,” Burnham said.
Twelve homes are, or have to be, demolished and removed, according
to Burnham. The number could change, but Burnham said 12 is pretty
solid.
“At this point, the city would finance it,” Burnham said. “No one
else is on the horizon.” City officials announced the proposal Monday
night at a meeting of affected homeowners, held at the Neighborhood
Congregational Church.
Burnham, Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider, city consulting
geologist Hannes Richter, city analyst Jamie Pendleton and Laguna
Relief and Resource Coalition representatives Ed Sauls and Marsha
Bode attended the meeting to update the displaced families on
activities in their behalf. The families are determined to be part of
the solution. A steering committee has been organized to help
families get their homes rebuilt as expediently as possible and to
provide interim support, including information.
“We are your neighbors and we are all in the same boat,” steering
committee president Stephen Huberty said.
“We are not a charity. We decided that is not what we want to do.
The resource center does that and does it better than we could. We
are not a homeowners’ association. We are not going to decide what
color your mailbox should be. We are a conduit to share information,
to share needs and help the city distribute information.”
Goals have been established for five sub-committees: external
communications, internal communications, rebuilding, government
relations and finance.
External communications chair Marcus Noble will deal specifically
with the media -- keeping the story alive.
Noble warned the homeowners that the slide is already “old news.”
“The landslide story is winding down,” Noble said. “The rebuilding
story is just beginning. We have to work to keep it current.”
Internal communications is a means to keep group members in touch
with one another.
“Our primary goal is to get contact information for all of you and
your neighbors so you can join our Yahoo group,” Huberty said.
The idea is to put the family that might need hard hats to recover
personal belongings or packing boxes together with a company or
individual that has them.
Kaveh Lahijani -- who owns two red-tagged properties, one that was
in construction and one that he was remodeling -- is heading up the
rebuilding sub-committee.
“I volunteered for this because we all have something in common,”
Lahijani said. “We need solutions that benefit more than one person.
“We have red-tagged homes in two categories -- some that are
completely destroyed and some that may be salvaged. We want to come
up with a solution that will get the salvageable homes stabilized
before the winter.”
The committee’s second phase will be as a conduit for neighborhood
improvements, such as undergrounding utilities and the creation of a
secondary egress from the canyon to make evacuation more efficient in
times of disaster.
The last phase would be the rebuilding of the homes -- which could
be expedited by fast-tracking the design review process or
eliminating it for homes that will be replaced in kind, as was done
after the 1993 firestorm. City fees also were waved and construction
hours were extended, making it cheaper and faster to rebuild.
“If we move forward together, we will get there faster,” Lahijani
said.
Todd McCallum will head up the government relations sub-committee,
mentored by Dale Ghere, who was instrumental in pushing through
reconstruction after the 1978 Bluebird Canyon landslide.
MaCallum outlined five key roles for the subcommittee: act as a
go-between with the local government, ensure other subcommittees get
to the right people in government to get their jobs done, keep the
families informed, and update the city on the groups’ activities by
attending government meetings.
Representatives of In Case of Emergency offered free
record-keeping books to document belongings and other pertinent
information to the families. The books are available at the Resource
Center, 3305 Laguna Canyon Road, behind Kubisek’s Antiques.
Sauls announced at the meeting that the resource center would be
distributing $500 this week to each family that expects to be out for
at least a year.
The steering committee will meet again on Monday at the
Neighborhood Congregational Church, 340 St. Ann’s Drive on the corner
of Glenneyre Street.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.