Exiled City Design Committee Member Speaks Out

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Tuesday night, the City Council decided to disband the Design Review Committee, a panel that often looks at the nitty-gritty architectural details of a proposed development. Councilmen said they wanted to remove a layer of bureaucracy to help move business along. Bob Cardoza, a now-former member of the DRC, gave Patch his reaction. We reprint it here in full.

My biggest, I would say it’s disappointment, is that the interested parties probably don’t have the flavor of the feel of for what San Juan had been trying to do, is to protect the image or to develop or enhance the character of what was known as San Juan Capistrano, the village feeling.

That appears to be disappearing I would say by compromising or overly-compromising and trying to let retail development go ahead and do as they feel is appropriate for their marketing needs and disregarding the overview of San Juan Capistrano at large.

If that is going to be the tenor, then maybe it’s just as well to not have the DRC because they’re trying to uphold the documents and the statements for guidelines as they’ve been approved by the City Council – subject to some interpretation, possibly. But for the most part, it’s looking at the overall picture of San Juan as a whole.

And if this is to change, then it will become quite contemporary in overall feel and appearance. And in the long run, I believe the city will become criticized for having made the decisions to change the tenor of San Juan Capistrano at large.

So we have a [discouraging] situation between the factions within San Juan Capistrano. It makes for interesting reading, and it makes for interesting concerns and topics for discussion. But if San Juan is to move forward, then it will leave behind what San Juan was originally known for, as it was.