Local developers say they’re a different breed of entrepreneur–and that they deserve a little respect

BY ANNE QUINN

Developers are the people we love to hate.

They nail down their dreams at the expense of open space. They make money while making us mad.

In SLO County, that’s how many of us view developers. They’re hated, heckled, sued, and slandered. Who needs them?

Well, we do, says developer Rob Rossi.

"Anyone who lives around here lives and works in something built by a developer," says Rossi, whose name often inspires unprintable epithets from area environmentalists.

OK, developers build the homes where we live and the offices where we work. Yes, if it weren’t for them, environmentalists would be living in tents. So maybe we need some of today’s developers, just like we needed yesterday’s, who developed the county’s historic buildings back when they were new.

But aren’t developers the problem with growth in SLO County?

"People need to stop having babies," says Duane DeBlauw. "That’s the real growth issue."

DeBlauw is with the Arroyo Grande-family development and construction firm, DeBlauw Builders, Inc.

Adds his father, Richard DeBlauw, president of the company: "Builders, developers, contractors, guys who work the trades–they’re important because they provide shelter for all of us. Instead, we’re looked upon as the enemy, someone to look down on."

That’s a new one. Developers as victims. Maybe Joe Boud wouldn’t put it quite that way. But close.

Boud’s the owner of Joseph Boud & Associates, a SLO design and planning agency. He recalls how hostility toward developers permeated the county planning department when he worked there 20 years ago.

"I thought, ‘Why are you treating this guy as the enemy? You’re in partnership with him–he’s implementing our general plan. If you don’t like what the plan calls for, then change it. But don’t hate this guy because he’s simply taking a chance with risk capital."

Local developers like Rossi say hostility toward developers places the blame in the wrong corner: "Some think that developers create the demand–but developers balance the scale by satisfying demand."

There are thousands of anonymous developers out there from Los Angeles or Texas or Japan who view SLO County as just another place to build, fill up their bank accounts and leave town.

But we tend not to distinguish them from our homegrown developers who’ve lived here for years, sometimes for generations.

Homegrown developers say they have to stay here and live with the consequences of their work. They say this makes them different.

Are they?

The Dalidio dilemma

Ernie Dalidio thinks so.

"I’m not a developer. I’m a farmer," he says. "I’ve driven tractors and eaten dirt longer than anybody."

The day Dalidio graduated from high school, he promised to manage his grandfather’s 600-acre ranch in Cayucos. Like his grandfather, Florino Dalidio, Ernie keeps his promises.

A sponsor back in Switzerland bought the tickets that brought 15-year-old Florino Dalidio passage to America in 1888. Two other boys from his village shared the voyage.

"They were supposed to pay the sponsors back," explains Dalidio. As soon as they got to America, the two other boys reneged and disappeared. But Florino paid his sponsor by working for years "shoveling manure and milking cows, says Dalidio.

"If you’re a farmer, you’ve got to be a businessman first," says Dalidio. "My grandfather was a businessman."

Ernie Dalidio inherited a land legacy that may seem like a dream to own, but has become a nightmare to manage. His San Luis Obispo farmland, surrounded by houses and shops, can’t turn a profit and he wants to develop.

On Jan. 27, when the County Board of Supervisors reviewed the Dalidio Project on Madonna Road, SLO City Council Member Christine Mulholland said she couldn’t understand why Ernie Dalidio can’t make a profit on prime agricultural land in SLO when "my granddaddy farmed hardpan."

Retired farmers like Norm Teixeira have an answer. He says that while many in San Luis would like to think they live in an agricultural valley, Teixeira, a fifth-generation farmer in the Santa Maria valley, says that’s an illusion.

"San Luis Obispo is not prime agriculture anymore," he says. "There aren’t even any coolers up there now [for storage]. Ernie has to truck the vegetables he grows all the way to Oceano or Santa Maria and the fuel costs alone eat up his profits."

Teixeira says his grandchildren probably won’t be able to make a living farming because of even greater changes that have occurred since Mulholland’s grandfather farmed the land.

These changes include NAFTA, which removed tariffs on foreign produce, President Clinton’s decision to drop trade barriers on China, and giant grocery conglomerates that control the markets.

Ernie Dalidio says Mulholland’s grandfather could never have dreamed of the problems facing farmers today–soaring equipment prices and world-wide competition that make profits plummet.

Not that Ernie Dalidio hasn’t tried farming his land. He says that first he grew garbanzo beans, then snow peas, then other crops. He rented a cooler in Oceano, and even tried growing in La Paz. But it wasn’t enough.

"Finally, I came face to face with it," he says. "Being a small grower up here isn’t going to work. I could stay here and die, or move it all to Santa Maria and start over. The handwriting is on the wall for this property."

Now the handwriting is in the 1994 General Plan for the City of San Luis Obispo, which was completed by an earlier SLO City Council after many late-night meetings.

"Not everybody got what they wanted," recalls then-SLO Mayor Peg Pinard. "There was a lot of compromise."

Written into it was a new plan for the landlocked Dalidio property, which was to have 40 acres of retail, 10 acres of medium-to high-density housing, and 10 acres of conservation open space that would stay open until a specific plan was formulated. The rest would remain permanent open space, according to SLO City planner, Pam Ricci.

But since then, a new city council was voted in with opponents like Mulholland. Then last February, the council went against its own general plan and turned down the Dalidio project, essentially breaking promises the city had made to Ernie Dalidio.

Dalidio’s plans include affordable housing for seniors, oriental gardens, an agricultural classroom for Cal Poly and other amenities. But it also includes big box stores, near the highway–like many other California towns along U.S. Highway 101. And San Luis Obispo does not like to think it’s like any other place on earth.

Striking at the heart of SLO Town’s vanity, big box stores look like the eyesore they never dreamed of: perhaps even worse than Madonna’s pink sign.

"No matter what happens, we’re not going to continue farming," says Dalidio. "This time we’re not giving up."

When dreams die hard

When Rex Hendrix moved to Atascadero at 14, he lived in a house without electricity near Devil’s Gap, a Tolkien-like rocky crag that rises up on both sides of Highway 41 between Atascadero and Morro Bay. Today his home is in a quiet Atascadero valley.

In 1958, Hendrix was a Navy vet who’d returned to Cal Poly to study ornamental horticulture, then worked at Atascadero State Hospital as a psychiatric technician. ASH didn’t pay much, so he started playing piano in bars for extra money.

"There were four bars in Atascadero back then, and I’d rotate between all four of them," says Hendrix. "The money was actually pretty good."

When he and his wife, Betty, bought a house for $8,000 that came with an extra lot, Hendrix became partners with one of the cooks at ASH who also had a contracting license. They built a house on the lot and sold it.

"It was a big decision to quit a steady job," says Hendrix. "We sold that house for $16,500."

Since then Hendrix has built houses all over Atascadero and Paso Robles.

"Back then, you could buy lots in Atascadero for $500 to $800," he says. "We’d also buy old houses, fix them up, and sell. If a house wouldn’t sell, we’d move into it. We moved many times."

In Cambria, lots were practically being given away.

"I bought one oceanfront lot for $5,000 and thought, ‘We’ll never sell this thing.’ Now that same house sells for a million and a half."

In 1961, Hendrix got his real estate broker’s license, then opened a real estate and construction office.

Hendrix is a history buff and has a kinship with E. G. Lewis, the founder of the Atascadero Colony who bought the 23,000-acre Atascadero Rancho in 1913 to create a utopian model city.

"I think of Lewis as a developer," says Hendrix. "Like Lewis, developers are visionaries, dreamers, people who are never satisfied with the status quo, but see opportunity and are willing to go out and do something about it. Today, Lewis is revered, but we’re scorned for trying to do the same thing."

A visionary’s dreams don’t always come true–like plans for 55 acres that Hendrix owns in Atascadero.

"About 10 years ago, I wanted to do a western theme park out there," he says. "I brought George Jones out from Nashville, and he was really excited about it. You’d have thought I was bringing the devil out here and destroying the town."

Here comes Copelandobispo

Match a development to a community’s vision of itself and just watch how devils turn into angels–and how fast projects get approved.

Tom Copeland has lived in San Luis Obispo since he was three. He says that he and his brother Jim wanted to "fix something that was out of whack," when they designed and built San Luis Obispo’s Downtown Center in 1994.

Many of us remember the gaping hole on Higuera Street that sat for years after plans for what was to have been the French Pavilion were abandoned. Today, it’s the popular Downtown Center.

. "I don’t think we’re unique," says Tom Copeland of the Downtown Center. "I think that vision is shared by many."

This shared vision, Copeland says, is why downtown San Luis remains strong–a commitment to "infill" development and awareness that a healthy retail mix protects downtown from development on its outlying areas.

The Downtown Center benefited from the Copeland’s expertise in retail, explains architect Mark Rawson of APS Architects.

"I learned a lot from working with them. There are things that they intuitively understand need to be in the retail environment. They oriented things to make Marsh Street vital. The theaters opened up Marsh Street and made it more of a pedestrian thoroughfare than before. Then things started happening. The whole area became revitalized."

The Copelands propose doing the same thing on two separate corners in San Luis–the Court Street property, a parking lot at the corner of Osos and Monterey streets, and the corner of Palm and Morro streets that will house 15,700 square feet of office space, plus four levels of additional parking.

The Osos/Monterey structure will feature the Copeland’s signature pedestrian thoroughfare, providing outdoor seating and a modern urban ambiance. With additional parking on Palm Street and office space for an expanded city work force, the city considers it an offer too good to refuse. So does just about everyone else.

Says Shelley Stanwyck, the economic development manager for the city: "The Copelands are really devoted to SLO. We wouldn’t have this project if they weren’t. They’re more likely to use local contractors and local architects than a developer from LA, who’d never be able to capture the flavor of San Luis."

Anger in Arroyo

The DeBlauws of Atascadero would like to accomplish similar urban renewal with the Creekside Center in Arroyo Grande, a commercial retail, office and residential complex proposed for 3.5 acres of property now occupied by the E.C. Loomis & Son Feed Store at the east end of Arroyo Grande Village.

For Richard DeBlauw, it's a family affair. He moved here in 1968 and began subcontracting with his brother Bill, who has since retired. Now his twin sons Duane and Dale have joined him in the business.

The proposed Creekside Center consists of five one- and two-story buildings designed in a turn-of-the-19th-century style, aimed at matching the eclectic style of existing older buildings. An area set back along the Talley Ho creek bank would become a public garden and park with landscaping, pathways and an amphitheater.

Creekside Center would be oriented toward the creekside gardens, and include an interior promenade, gardens, fountains, patios and a gazebo.

Currently the project is undergoing environmental review, and will be open to public hearings by late spring. It was approved unanimously by the city’s architecture review board and has general approval from shopkeepers on quaint Branch Street.

But it doesn’t match everyone’s vision of Arroyo Grande.

A citizen’s group, Preserve the Village, opposes Creekside Center.

Joe Loomis is the first to admit that the barn is held together with "spit and tar and is not worth preserving." The South County Historical Society refused an offer to take ownership of it.

But the barn symbolizes Arroyo Grande’s agricultural past and stands as a reminder of the community’s peaceful rural days.

The DeBlauws believe their project harmonizes with the historic buildings in Arroyo Grande Village. They shake their heads over being looked upon as destroyers of the community.

Says Joe DeBlauws: "I feel I’m improving a piece of property and replacing old, dilapidated structures."

Santa Margarita’s ranch war

Developer Rob Rossi says that conflicting philosophies over how to develop the 14,000-acre Santa Margarita Ranch is why he and a Santa Barbara investment firm recently parted ways. Since then, two local investors have joined him–Doug Filipponi, who grew up in Santa Margarita, and Karl Wittstrom from Shandon. Rossi says the three of them need to sell lots or pull out, leaving the community to deal with developers.

Rossi says that if they’re allowed a lot line adjustment, they’ll cluster 35 of the ranch’s 36 sites on 250 acres, with each homesite on a five-acre parcel. The cluster arrangement will allow 350 acres to become permanent open space with the California Rangeland Trust.

The conservation easement has already been drawn up, but is contingent upon Rossi getting an already approved lot line adjustment so the partners can sell homesites. But the Santa Margarita Area Residents Together (SMART) opposes the ranch’s development and has filed an appeal against the lot line adjustment.

Legislation that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2001, prohibits lot line adjustments. According to the law, the day that SMART’s appeal opens in court, the lot line adjustment is revoked and cannot be reinstated. That’s because after Jan. 1, lot line adjustments are illegal for any subdivision over four lots. If that happens Rossi, Filipponi and Wittstrom say they’ll have to abandon the project.

SMART is in the position of a mouse holding a door that’s about to close on a cat’s tail. Lot line adjustments were outlawed because they were perceived to be a loophole developers could slip through. But in this case, a lot of people question the law and oppose SMART’s position.

SMART has worked for 15 years to educate local citizens to minimize the impacts of development. The group negotiated with Rossi to devise a plan to divert most traffic from the Santa Margarita Ranch development away from the quiet streets of Garden Farms. But now the people SMART has been fighting for are asking them to stop fighting.

SMART asked for a 60-day extension of the appeal to negotiate with Rossi and his partners before the trial opens and the lot line adjustment is invalidated. Rossi and partners gave them two weeks, saying they’re stretched too thin financially to wait 60 days.

Many people of Garden Farms are ready to trust Rossi, Filipponi and Wittstrom because they’d rather see the future of the ranch stay in local hands. On Jan. 23, they delivered a petition to SMART, asking its leaders to please drop their appeal. The 88 petitioners assured SMART that they will continue to support SMART’s goal to preserve the environment.

On a windy afternoon after the petition had been delivered, Rob Rossi, Doug Filipponi and Karl Wittstrom stood on a small rise near the old Rancho on the Santa Margarita Ranch.

"You should have worn your white hat Karl," Filipponi joked to Wittstrom, who wears a black 10-gallon hat.

The land that will be preserved by the California Rangeland Trust swept below them. The lot line adjustment will move the homesites farther north, Rossi explains, pointing to South Atascadero where many lots are already on five-acre parcels.

Of devils and angels

Homegrown developers say they’re different, that unlike outside developers, they care enough about SLO County and want its development to hew to environmental principles and people-oriented projects.

But the question remains, as if suspended high above the bucolic landscape of SLO County: With the region’s inevitable growth, will they become our devils or our angels? Æ

Anne Quinn is still developing her perspective.