Relationships crumble as wall separating Costa Mesa homes and dealership comes down
On the evening of July 14, a woman approached the podium inside Costa Mesa City Hall to inform the powers that be that her dog died.
She blamed Daisy’s death on the car dealership behind her house.
Chau Vuong became visibly upset in telling the Planning Commission how Orange Coast Buick/GMC/Cadillac, reportedly without much notice, began a large-scale demolition project in March that razed the large wall separating her backyard from the dealership.
A contractor had replaced the wall, which the dealership owned, with a small temporary fence, whose “gaps and holes,” Vuong said, allowed Daisy to escape and then get hit by a car.
“Because of the dealership’s negligence,” a tearful Vuong told the commissioners, “I’ve lost one of my best friends, and I’ll never have her back.”
Vuong was one of many who spoke about the problems facing Princeton Drive, a tidy swath of mid-century modern homes in College Park, just south of the car lot.
A few months before, crews began demolishing the decades-old buildings on the lot to make way for a new 57,000-square-foot facility, one that would boast new technology, “Internet-driven” showrooms and indoor service bays. It was designed for around 350 cars, including customer parking.
The plans were being driven by Orange Coast’s new Michigan-based owner, the Suburban Collection. The goal was to transform the Harbor Boulevard business into something as world-class as Fletcher Jones Motorcars, the Mercedes-Benz dealership overlooking Upper Newport Bay. Suburban bought the 4.1-acre campus at Harbor and Merrimac Way in October 2011, giving the Midwestern dealership chain a California foothold.
To help keep the inventory on-site, Orange Coast was seeking city permission to incorporate 34,000 square feet of rooftop parking into its existing plan — a change that would expand the dealership’s footprint.
The rooftop deck was not part of the designs submitted to City Hall in 2013. Those called for about 53,000 square feet and setbacks of at least 133 feet from neighboring backyards. With the parking deck, however, the plans edged closer, to within 52 feet, outraging residents who were comfortable with the original concepts.
To the Planning Commission, residents complained about Orange Coast’s new design, expressing concerns about light spillage, noise and privacy loss.
Before the demolition, the dealership had a rooftop parking deck that was built to within a few feet of Princeton homes. For years, residents complained of visitors and employees on the deck who peered into their backyards, talked noisily and smoked.
The newly proposed parking deck, to be around 25 feet high, would pose similar problems, they argued.
Residents were angry as well over property damage. Some attributed thousands of dollars in repairs to cracks in walls, windows and a patio slab to the demolition job earlier that spring.
“Cracks? Everybody’s got cracks,” Princeton resident Teresa Drain said after the meeting. “I don’t know how long that demolition took, but it was every day of the house actually shaking.”
Brad and Jennifer Doane claimed damage and told commissioners that their Princeton home could incur up to a $50,000 valuation loss because of the potential for light spillover and other effects.
“Can we prove it was the dealership? No,” Jennifer Doane said of the damage in a follow-up interview. “But as they were demolishing, was it vibrating the house pretty strongly? Yes. We definitely felt it, for sure.”
During the hearing, Brad Doane took offense at a comment from an Orange Coast project architect that the dealership was trying to be “a good neighbor.”
“You should be embarrassed for even standing up and saying that,” Doane said.
Alan Croall, a construction manager from Simi Valley-based Pacific West Builders, told the commission that some people got 48-hour written notices and others got word about a week before the March 12 demolition.
Orange Coast was incorporating some conditions aimed at easing longtime concerns: controllable LED lighting systems; the barring of loud speakers and residential test drives; and efforts to reduce noise.
“I’m sad for them to feel as if we’re not being a good neighbor ... I will do everything in my power to make the neighbors feel as if we’re hearing what they’re saying,” Croall said.
Planning Commissioner Robert Dickson cited the residents’ concerns as “concrete examples of big problems.”
Commissioner Colin McCarthy pointed to evidence showing the earlier tall wall and the replacement that Vuong decried: small temporary fencing that provided easy viewing of the dirt mounds and construction equipment.
“Who wants to live with that in your yard?” McCarthy said. “This is just one big, hot mess.”
The commission voted to hold off any decision, with the caveat that Orange Coast needed to do more community outreach and provide precise project renderings. McCarthy dissented.
“There’s a dramatic breakdown in communication,” Dickson said, “that needs to be rectified.”
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‘Dinosaur in the backyard’
Scott Nguyen lives behind the car lot at 458 Princeton, the northernmost house closest to Harbor.
Nguyen bought his house in 2011, knowing its proximity to the dealership. He liked how the 22-foot wall along his house buffered much of the Harbor Boulevard noise and secluded his backyard, where he hosted Fourth of July barbecues and shot hoops.
“It’s a big part of why we bought this house,” he said a few days after the Planning Commission meeting.
The dealership last expanded in 1988, after the Planning Commission approved a proposal that allowed a rooftop parking deck and showroom to inch all the way south to the property lines of 458 and 454 Princeton, a decision that bypassed city setback spacing requirements. In lieu of a setback, the dealership constructed the 22-foot high wall, which snaked around the back and side yards of the 458 Princeton property.
Everything changed March 21, 2014, the day Pacific West began demolishing the wall. From then on, in what he called an “upside-down nightmare,” Nguyen was subject to a noisy excavator that clawed at concrete and moved about debris in the mornings like “a dinosaur in the backyard.”
When the wall crumbled, Pacific West replaced it with small temporary fencing. This was the same loose fence that Chau Vuong, Nguyen’s former roommate, believes led to her dog’s escape.
For Nguyen, the temporary fence provided no sense of security. Things he once stored in his backyard — snowboards, diving gear — were brought into his living room. He installed a surveillance system and lights, afraid that trespassers could easily enter his property from Harbor.
“I just don’t feel safe being at home anymore,” Nguyen said.
He blamed the demolition for what he called thousands of dollars in damage to his property and belongings.
Keepsake figurines given to him by his mother for the backyard were broken, he said, as were a basketball hoop and sprinkler system. The koi in the backyard pond died, he said.
“No respect for any of this,” Nguyen said. “They broke everything.”
On April 23, in the midst of demolition, Nguyen’s attorney sent Pacific West a cease-and-desist letter. Lawyer Devin Lucas wrote that seismic vibrations from the construction shook Nguyen’s home and its foundation and caused numerous interior and exterior cracks. The letter demanded that construction workers not trespass on Nguyen’s property and that an 8-foot fence be built.
Lucas claimed that Nguyen never received a demolition notice, but dealership officials have countered that. They documented delivery attempts on March 17 and 19, as well as email correspondence, before razing the wall on March 21. They contended that Nguyen was difficult to contact.
Croall, the construction manager, told the Planning Commission that he had never received a cease-and-desist letter in his decades of experience.
Orange Coast officials also noted that the 22-foot-high wall had been built three feet from Nguyen’s property line and that any homeowner since the wall’s construction has had access to that three feet.
Dealership officials say they won’t need the three feet with their new plans, and that Princeton homeowners can keep using it.
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Cars replace cows
Margaret “Peggy” Engard, 85, has lived at 448 Princeton Drive since 1956, when College Park opened. The Costa Mesa Globe-Herald, which later merged with the Daily Pilot, wrote about the Engards buying a home in the brand-new tract, where, “Westerly winds direct from the Pacific Ocean freshen the air every day of the year!”
The land behind her house, where the dealership is today, was once a cow pasture. Bovines wandered up to the backyards.
By 1967, the cows were out and the cars were in. Nabers Cadillac, owned for decades by Richard “Dick” Nabers, joined what became the Harbor Boulevard of Cars. Sales were good, but relations with Princeton Drive neighbors, according to accounts, were continually strained. The dealership wanted to expand in a southerly direction. Nabers ended up buying and renting out several Princeton homes, presumably with hopes of eventual expansion.
One of them was on the northernmost end, closest to Harbor and next to where Nguyen’s home is today. Nabers removed the house with the intent of expanding his business into College Park, and though Nabers wanted more of his Princeton homes rezoned from residential to commercial, the City Council ended up approving only the designation for the empty lot at the end.
That decision sparked Costa Mesa’s first citywide referendum in 1976. Hank Panian, a now-retired Orange Coast College history professor, gathered signatures for the initiative.
“We thought that that rezone would be a commercial intrusion into our residential area,” Panian, who still lives in the area, said.
Voters agreed. The lot stayed residential.
“I think the interesting point is the fact that you would end up with something on the ballot as small as a single residence,” then-City Manager Allan Roeder told the Daily Pilot in 2008.
Nabers never gave up. In 1988, he convinced the Planning Commission to allow him to build right up to the 458 and 454 Princeton property lines and use some of the empty lot subject to the 1976 referendum.
“He succeeded because he contacted neighbors ahead of time, got their input and made measures that were favorable to the neighbors,” Panian said.
Nabers died in 2006.
Still, like Nabers never forgoing his expansion efforts, residents never stopped finding things they didn’t like. According to news accounts and city documents from 1987, 1988, 1992 and 1993, frustrated folks complained of sun blockage from the tall wall separating Princeton from Nabers, dealership employees parking on their street, noisy compressor systems, customers and employees peering into backyards from the elevated parking deck, blaring public announcement systems and bothersome lighting.
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Trying to smooth things over
Peter Naghavi, who has expertise in transportation and development, retired from Costa Mesa City Hall in 2013 after some 23 years there. He is consulting for the dealership on the Orange Coast project.
In Naghavi’s view, Costa Mesa would be fortunate to see the roughly $14-million development through. Dealerships like Orange Coast, he said, are coveted for their sales-tax revenue.
“Cities compete with each other, they stumble over each other to get things like these in their cities,” he said in a Sept. 3 interview. “This will be the nicest dealership on Harbor Boulevard, by far ... it’s not a used-car lot with 15 cars, half of which don’t run.”
Naghavi, who was hired after the Planning Commission voted in July to delay Orange Coast’s building requests, initiated a series of communicative measures that, he acknowledged, should have been done in the first place.
“There was communication,” he said, “but I think it was miscommunication.”
He hand-delivered about a dozen letters to residents and created a matrix of their concerns. He helped facilitate the fixing of some of the problems affecting Princeton, a middle-class area where many homes are valued in the $600,000s.
After Engard reported damage to her backyard, it was fixed within a week.
Naghavi implemented significant changes to the company’s plans. To avoid light from spilling onto homes, he pushed back the plan’s rooftop light poles by 53 feet, keeping them 106 feet from Princeton, and lowered the poles’ height from 15 feet to 12 feet. He mandated that the rooftop lights be turned off after 10 p.m.
He added to the designs a 27-foot-high “green wall” with flowers and vegetation for the south end of the parking deck. To solve privacy concerns, the green wall would also be about 6 feet higher than the floor of the deck, which, in effect, would make looking southward toward Princeton from the deck difficult.
There would also be a new 8-foot wall separating Orange Coast from portions of Princeton, and all along the property line between Princeton and the dealership, a line of trees that would grow up to 25 feet.
Naghavi had the dealership remove from the plans its 40-foot-tall Harbor Boulevard street sign. Its replacement would be 23 feet and, unlike the 40-foot sign, not visible from Princeton.
And to further mend fences with neighbors, Naghavi suggested that the little sliver of Princeton that the dealership has had since the 1970s — the land that spurred the 1976 referendum — be the home of a landscaped College Park neighborhood entry sign, constructed and maintained by Orange Coast.
Naghavi said his changes totaled around $750,000. Orange Coast agreed to them all.
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A meeting with residents
Naghavi met Aug. 22 with a dozen College Park residents to show them the adjusted plans. He hoped they would find them a considerable improvement.
They didn’t. By a show of hands, residents showed Naghavi that they didn’t like the parking deck. Naghavi told them he couldn’t dissuade Orange Coast from planning on building it.
Residents didn’t like the neighborhood entry sign either, thinking it could draw homeless people and create more traffic. Naghavi tried to assure them that wouldn’t be the case, saying a sign would convince motorists that the area was not a good cut-through option.
In a Sept. 30 interview, Naghavi said the dealership was more than willing to discuss damage caused by the demolition. At least two Princeton homes have already undergone repairs at the dealership’s expense. Naghavi said he was unaware of any legal claims.
The retired city administrator said he hopes the project will inspire improvements at other dealerships on Harbor Boulevard, a thoroughfare lined with such businesses, some more visually appealing than others.
“Politics should stay out of this project,” Naghavi said. “This is a community project for the next 30 years.”
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Planners sign off on deal
For around three hours on Sept. 8, the Planning Commission heard about the new plans. Naghavi brought in a lighting expert to testify about the non-intrusive LED displays. A landscape architect spoke. Everyone viewed before-and-after pictures and conceptual drawings.
Naghavi reminded commissioners about the estimated $14 million that Orange Coast wanted to pump into its new smoke-free facility.
“This is not your typical used-car lot,” he said.
Princeton residents were unswayed. One speculated that rats would live in the green wall. Drain worried about the lighting.
“It’s as if they moved to Alaska,” she said. “It’s the land of the midnight sun.”
Nguyen remained angry about the demolition.
“Community relationships have broken down and weren’t there to begin with,” he said. “This project is being force-fed down our throats, and we really don’t have a say in it anymore.”
After listening to concerns, a Suburban Collection executive spoke.
Rather than addressing the commissioners, Ron MacEachern faced the attending public.
“I am so sorry about it not meeting your expectations,” he said, acknowledging that he underestimated “the passion of the neighbors in this room.”
He said his company intended to build a world-class dealership.
“You don’t spend $15 million on a facility to be chasing rats around,” MacEachern said.
The Planning Commission unanimously approved Naghavi’s additions, as well as the parking deck.
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Genis, Leece call for concessions
The saga didn’t end there. On Sept. 15, Councilwomen Sandy Genis and Wendy Leece appealed the commission’s ruling.
“There have been a lot of issues that have risen in the past,” Genis said, “and because of the proximity to the neighbors, we have to be extra careful now.”
Planning Commission Chairman Jim Fitzpatrick stood by his colleagues’ decision, saying, “I thought we balanced the rights between residents with a business that generates a million dollars a year in tax revenue.”
Naghavi continued his outreach, setting up an Oct. 2 site tour. Attendees saw where the parking deck would be placed and its relative distance from homes.
Naghavi told guests that the new owners were paying the price for who came before. Construction officials stressed that the new service bays were going to be located inside to better contain sound.
While standing in the space where the parking deck is planned, Leslie Sterrett, a Princeton resident since 1963, remained skeptical about why the franchise didn’t factor in the deck in 2013 when submitting an expansion plan.
Naghavi replied that it wasn’t initially considered, but that the company later decided to contain everything on-site rather than store overflow inventory elsewhere.
“It was an afterthought,” Naghavi said, “not a before-thought.”
When asked about the dealership’s concessions, Sterrett shrugged.
Those will help, he said, and the plan is better than what Nabers Cadillac had, “but an albatross is still an albatross.”
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Project goes before the City Council
Drain was crying outside of City Council chambers Tuesday.
“No one’s asking for money,” she said.
Minutes earlier, Drain had left the room, upset at Mayor Jim Righeimer’s accusation that residents wanted money from Orange Coast.
“What I heard here is property owners trying to shake down somebody for money, for cash,” Righeimer said.
Audience members booed.
“That’s what they were looking for,” Righeimer continued, “and I think that is outrageous.”
Drain had inquired about additional mitigation, like the sound wall received by College Park residents who live behind the Home Depot on Harbor.
Righeimer applauded Orange Coast for its $750,000 in improvements. He said he had no problem with Princeton residents, but he disagreed with several conditions suggested by Genis, who before the meeting reached out to the dealership and neighbors.
Her suggestions, to which Orange Coast agreed, included limiting rooftop parking to inventory. She wanted a phone number to report concerns about security, pest control, noise and other problems, and the rooftop parking lights dimmed at 9 p.m. and turned off by 10 p.m.
Righeimer called those measures micromanaging, the acts of an overreaching government.
“We have people constantly, constantly attacking business,” Righeimer said.
For Genis, her measures were ways of addressing residents’ concerns by putting them in writing and forcing compliance with her proposals. Years ago, Nabers Cadillac said it would do things to help College Park, Genis said, but didn’t, leading to years of problems.
Genis surmised that Righeimer didn’t like her suggestions because he wasn’t in on her earlier discussions about the dealership changes.
“I think it’s terrible,” Genis said, “that somebody would have a temper tantrum about this.”
Though Councilwoman Wendy Leece supported them, Genis’ suggestions were denied. Righeimer, Mayor Pro Tem Steve Mensinger and Councilman Gary Monahan voted to uphold the Planning Commission’s earlier approval with a few new conditions, one of which was Orange Coast nullifying its 1988 approvals that brought the dealership so close to Princeton.
After the vote, Princeton residents surrounded MacEachern, the Suburban executive, outside the council chambers and told him about First Friday Roadshow, a monthly car show event at City Hall.
“I know all about it,” MacEachern said. He thought it would be a great advertising opportunity.
The mood had changed. The group of Princeton residents who attended Tuesday’s meeting were no longer expressing animosity toward Orange Coast but were now directing it toward the council majority.
Sterrett said he’s going to plant 10 palm trees in his backyard to shield his property from the parking deck.
“I’ve got a contingency plan,” he said with a smile.
Naghavi said Orange Coast plans to continue fixing any problems related to the demolition, including constructing a new 10-foot wall for Nguyen and doing more community outreach. The company will also continue using its temporary space across the street from the construction site until the work is finished.
Construction could be completed by summer 2015.
