An anti-growth rebellion ... in San Clemente?

How did this staid (and some might say stuffy) town that hosted Richard Nixon's Western White House turn into a hotbed of rebellion?  Scott Gold heads south for some explanations:

San Clemente's rabble-rousers are not exactly peasants with pitchforks. They're retirees, golfers with notable handicaps, investment advisors -- more like patricians with pitching wedges. But they are piecing together a citizen revolt of their own, in a place that has not been accustomed to that kind of thing in recent years.

The victory [to block] a golf course seemed to open the floodgates, and today, affable little San Clemente is in the grips of a surge in community activism. Citizen groups seem to be forming at every turn -- to oppose big signs that would be strung alongside a proposed outlet mall, to monitor the proposed development of more than 300 seaside homes, to fight plans for fancy retail development atop one of the town's primary beach accesses.

More about the seaside revolution, in which country club memberships got revoked and developers are being rebuffed, in Scott's full story.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Photo: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Marie]

Another case of "homestead excluisvism" does not suprise me in this supposedly "culturally rich" habitat. Nothing but hypocritcal NIMBY's.