A local homeowner’s association won’t get its park in time for Christmas, and City Hall is turning out to be Scrooge in this story. Timberline HOA maintained a small park within it neighborhood for many years when the City refused. But Timberline never was given ownership of the small parcel when the Aegean Hills area was annexed to Mission Viejo many years ago.
On November 17, 2008, Timeberline HOA President James Burns informed the City his HOA would no longer maintain Turf Lane Park, because it was owned by the City. The City disputed ownership, claiming it belonged to the County. Burns replied two weeks later the Council didn’t understand the ownership issues and wasn’t serious about solving the problem.
On June 15 Councilmember Trish Kelley issued a report saying the City had rejected an offer by the County to transfer ownership, and that title was still being discussed among the City, County and LAFCO. LAFCO was involved in the annexation of the Aegean Hills area.
Kelley wrote, “Since the Timberline HOA decided to stop maintaining the Turf Lane open space area, the grounds have become over-grown, unsightly and non-functional for the residents.” Later that month a resident wrote a letter to the Dispatch inviting people to “come and picnic in our 3-feet-deep city-owned grass with deat cats.”
A motion by Kelley “to go in and mow and clean up this area so it can be used by the neighbors” was supported by Cathy Schlicht, but it failed to pass due to opposing votes by MacLean, Ury and Ledesma. The outcome seemed odd considering the City maintains all City parks and many parcels of privately owned property around town. In August Timberline filed a formal complaint against the City, which was rejected by the Council.
At its next meeting, on January 4, 2010, the City Council will consider resolving the matter. It will consider an arrangement to transfer a “quitclaim” deed to the HOA on unknown terms. A quitclaim deed is not a grant deed guaranteeing ownership. It only transfers whatever right the transferor has, known or unknown, without resolving any disputes about title. That’s fine, if acceptable to Timberline - but the HOA seems to prefer the City just maintain the small space like all other publicly owned parks. The City hasn’t proposed other public parks and their maintenance be quitclaimed to adjacent HOAs.
In any case, the tenuous quitclaim deed could have been done a year ago, in time for Christmas 2008.
