Roy Nunn on Development in San Juan Capsitrano

“San Juan Capistrano is a small town, but it’s not a village.”

That’s architect and Planning Commissioner Roy Nunn venting on a frequent battle cry he hears in City Hall.

Nunn does agree with a lot of the development safeguards the city has put into place. For example, protecting the ridgelines was a “major coup.”

At the same time, “property owners should be able to expect to develop their property within the guidelines,” he said.

How permissive a city is with development proposals is a pendulum, and right now, it’s swinging toward business-friendly, Nunn said. That’s the message he got when the City Council disbanded a committee that scrutinized project designs before they came before the Planning Commission.

Nunn, who was a member of that Design Review Committee, acknowledged it could be frustrating for developers to work hard to satisfy one body, then find out planning commissioners had different opinions. Some applicants ping-ponged between the two bodies several times before finding a satisfactory design.

The City Council “saw a harshness about the review process which was not there before,” Nunn said.

With the economic downturn, Nunn can see why city leaders would want to be more business friendly.

At the same time, “We have to be careful that we don’t let it slice through the infrastructure of the community,” he said. “What we have to do is get the businesses to understand what it takes to be in San Juan.”

Nunn fully expects the pendulum to swing back the other way eventually.

“It’s hard to get the needle to stay in the middle.”

See related articles:

• The Man Behind Modern San Juan Capistrano
• Take the Roy Nunn Tour of Architecture in San Juan Capistrano

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