Under the Gun : Shooting Club Under Siege From Developer Fights for Life

COTO DE CAZA —  The clay pigeons flew across the clear blue sky, and the marksmen who blew them to bits complained that their rustic haven from the big city was in the sights of developers.

Rapid urbanization, they said, threatens sport shooting, and they couldn’t help but notice the irony in the name Coto de Caza, which means hunting preserve in Portuguese. To them, there wasn’t much preservation going on.

This “is the best place to shoot there is,” lamented Walt Tabor, 65, a recreational shooter who drives from his home in Torrance to draw beads on the clay disks as they skip over the chaparral. “Gradually all the gun clubs are being squeezed out of Southern California.”

The Hunt Lodge, they say, is no exception. The exclusive 22-year-old gun club that once listed actor John Wayne on its roster is embroiled in a controversy that threatens to eliminate one of the last spots in the region where shotgun enthusiasts can enjoy their sport.

Spreading residential development in this upscale community in south Orange County has already silenced the muzzles of the club’s skeet shooters--although other varieties of shorter-range sport shooting are still allowed--and is complicating a negotiated plan for the facility to move to a more remote canyon.

Officials of the 200-member lodge, which is part of the Coto Valley Country Club, blame the situation on Coto de Caza Ltd., a joint venture between Chevron Land Corp. and Arvida/JMB, the developer of the 5,200-acre Coto de Caza community.

“They want us just to go away, and we are not going to go away,” said William Radovich, president of Coto Valley Country Club and a longtime member of the Hunt Lodge.

The club is now pressing a lawsuit against Coto de Caza Ltd., alleging that the developer is deliberately undermining a court settlement it reached with the lodge in June, 1989, to help the facility relocate. Coto de Caza Ltd. officials deny that they have breached the agreement, which would clear the way for more homes and a golf course.

Under terms of that settlement, Coto Valley Country Club and Coto de Caza Ltd. agreed that the lodge would move from its current site in the community’s central valley to a canyon about a mile to the east. In exchange, Coto de Caza Ltd. deeded to the shooting club 128 acres for the new location.

The developer further agreed that the Hunt Lodge could continue operating where it was until the move was completed. In addition, Radovich said, the developer promised to build new firing ranges and an access road at the new site.

But the process of obtaining county approval for the new shooting facility has stretched months beyond the anticipated completion date of Dec. 31, 1990.

Last week, county staff recommended that the Orange County Planning Commission reject plans for the new lodge unless environmental impact studies show, among other things, that the shooting will not endanger wildlife and the people who use the nearby equestrian and hiking trails or will live in homes planned near the proposed lodge. The new site of the club is adjacent to an Audubon wildlife sanctuary.

“What we have is a timing problem,” said County Planning Director Thomas B. Mathews, who noted that processing of site plans for the new lodge has lagged behind residential development, causing land-use conflicts. The Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the issue Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a new tract of homes is rising on a ridge close to the Hunt Lodge, so close that the home builder obtained a court order in February to halt skeet shooting because pellets were falling on his construction workers.

Radovich said the cancellation of skeet shooting was seen by many Hunt Lodge members as the beginning of the end and a breach of their agreement with Coto Ltd.

The club’s lawsuit alleges that the developer falsified documents that the county considered for its approval of the housing project despite the fact it was within pellet range of the existing club--an allegation the developer strongly denies.

Radovich said the club also believes that Coto Ltd., which is in charge of processing plans for the new shooting site through the county, is trying to “sabotage” those plans by failing to aggressively address the county’s concerns.

He contends that the developer is plotting to have the plans rejected so the lodge will have nowhere to go. The basic problem, Radovich said, is that guns have acquired a “negative” image with the public in recent years and gun clubs are not considered desirable neighbors by developers of planned communities.

To support his concerns, Radovich obtained a copy of a letter sent earlier this month from John Sibley, deputy director of the Environmental Management Agency, to representatives of Coto Ltd.

According to the letter, the developer asked “that the county immediately terminate the operation of the Hunt Lodge” because of public safety and the possibility of unlawful shooting. In reply, Sibley said that the county did not have enough evidence so far to warrant shutting the club down.

Tosh Neminsky, director of planning for Coto de Caza Ltd., said the company has no scheme to oust the club from Coto de Caza.

“We have an obligation to relocate it,” Neminsky said.

He acknowledged that it has taken “an inordinate amount of time”--20 months so far--in seeking county approval for the relocation. But, he added, “we think we are close to getting it.”

The dispute between the gun club and Coto de Caza Ltd. came to a boil a few weeks ago when the developer’s representative took a county inspector to the shooting club’s relocation site. He pointed out a dirt road that was graded across the company’s property apparently without a county permit.

Aggravating the situation, Coto Ltd. officials said, is the use of the proposed relocation site before it has been approved.

“They decided to go out and do their own thing,” Neminsky said of the clay target shooting that Hunt Lodge members are conducting at the new site. “It is silly for us to go through a site development permit process if it is OK for them to turn their guns in any direction.”

Although the grading of the road was illegal, county officials say, it is still uncertain whether the resumption of shooting on club property violates the law and can be stopped.

Hunt Lodge members contend that the club had nothing to do with bulldozing the road. The grading was done along an existing easement anyway, they say, and Coto de Caza Ltd. has blown the whole thing out of proportion.

According to county officials, the club and the developer are responsible for restoring the area to its natural state or applying for a permit to have the grading authorized.

Despite the controversy, Hunt Lodge members continue to shoulder their shotguns and venture into the new shooting area--a picturesque canyon at the southeastern edge of Coto de Caza where they hope to make their stand.

They note that times have changed dramatically since 1968 when the Hunt Lodge was founded. At that time, the site of what is now posh Coto de Caza was kept in its natural state by Penn Central Railroad for use as a hunting, sport shooting and equestrian retreat for company executives.

Besides the Hunt Lodge, the only other shooting club remaining in the area is the Orange County Shooting and Training Center in Irvine.

Mike Weatherby, a sporting goods representative from South Laguna who was waiting his turn to shoot clay disks out of the sky, said he believes the loss of shooting clubs is a matter of economics.

“Shooting clubs don’t generate a lot of money, but homes do,” he said, adding that the trend is “partly the fault of the shooters. They don’t defend themselves.”

Another shooter, Don Criswall, a retired accountant from Yorba Linda, has thrown in the towel. After belonging to the Hunt Lodge almost 20 years, he said, he has turned in his lifetime membership because “fighting with the developer gets to be a hassle.”

Now, he shoots at the club as a guest. Criswall said he could not sell his membership because there is no market for it. “There is some doubt whether the club will continue to be around.”