Remote Surveillance Trailer in San Juan Capistrano, CA

A “unique” and “creative” solution to building more affordable housing in San Juan Capistrano and providing the community with an improved City Hall celebrated its completion this week.

The town’s new $10 million City Hall opened earlier this year, replacing facilities that decades ago were supposed to be a temporary situation with a 16,000-square-foot, two-story building with enough offices and spaces to meet staff’s needs, council chambers and meeting rooms and a front counter to serve the community.

The construction of the new City Hall allowed the city to dedicate part of the property on Paseo Adelanto to a 50-unit housing project, Salida del Sol, the grand opening of which was marked by community leaders and new residents on Thursday, Sept. 4.

“This is a unique project,” Mayor Troy Bourne said. “It was unique when it was thought of; its execution was unique.”

“This is a genius idea that came from our staff,” he added, “addressing housing needs and providing residents with a city hall they could be proud of.”

The city partnered with Jamboree Housing Corporation on the all-affordable complex, with a majority of units prioritized toward housing families and veterans with ties to San Juan Capistrano.

In the three-story building, there are 40 units of “supportive housing” for formerly homeless individuals and veterans who are earning less than 30% of the area median income and another nine units for families earning less than 50% of the area median.

On-site resources, such as mental health counseling and life skills education, will support residents to help them be successful, officials said. Telecare Home First Central, the OC Health Care Agency and Orange County’s Veterans Administration Housing and Urban Development Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing team will help with services.

The housing is using about 1.2 acres of the city’s property and is the first in Orange County to be built in conjunction with a city hall; there have been multiple recent projects where excess church or community center property has been used for housing.

Jamboree, which bought the property from the city, providing proceeds that helped with the administration building’s construction, used a mix of city and county affordable housing funds, as well as federal tax credits and $25 million in financing to build the units.

The city contributed $8 million toward the project, the county gave $2.4 million, and housing vouchers to offset rents are coming from the county and the OC Housing Authority. The Orange County Housing Finance Trust also helped with financing.

“For the first time in a very long time, I have a safe place to sleep, a door I can close, a foundation to stand on. And that stability has given me the space to breathe, to heal, to start over,” said Ryan Daughtry, who shared his journey to becoming a resident of Salida del Sol.

Daughtry, who grew up in New Orleans, said he joined the Navy at 24 after becoming a young father after high school. He was in the service for 13 years, serving three tours overseas, but was injured and developed an addiction during his recovery, he said. Divorce and then homelessness followed, he said, and in jail, he was paralysed after a surgery for a spine abscess.

A “silver lining” was the time he had to get sober, he said, and then finding a home at Salida del Sol.

“Affordable housing isn’t just four walls, construction, a roof. It’s my dignity,” he said. “It’s a second chance, and it is a place where I can pick myself back up. Not just for me, but for all the residents here.”

Bourne said he was proud of the San Juan Capistrano community for supporting the project, when often he sees new construction in California being challenged by existing neighbors.

“Low-income supportive housing is not supposed to be the thing that residents jump up and clap for,” he said. “I’ve been stunned by our community’s broad support for this project. I feel communities coming together and recognizing there is a problem here with housing, and it’s broader and it can’t be solved in someone else’s backyard.”

“The project is truly one-of-a-kind and gives us, the city,” he added, “the opportunity to stand up in the county as leaders and say look at what can be done to solve some of these issues in creative ways.”

A proposed trail bridge in San Juan Capistrano would allow for the removal of barriers in Trabuco Creek, making it easier for endangered southern steelhead trout to travel from the ocean to their spawning grounds in the Santa Ana Mountains.

The $45 million project, which would also include removing non-native plant species along the creek, stabilizing soil along the banks and some other public safety features, is being spearheaded by California Trout, a nonprofit group with a mission to preserve the state’s salmon, steelhead trout and other wild trout populations.

Planning has been in the works for more than a decade and could break ground by the end of next year if permits and approvals go through. It is being paid for by the nonprofit group.

Earlier this month, officials from California Trout asked the city of San Juan Capistrano to support the project and its request to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval of the bridge. Part of the land where the new bridge is proposed is under a railway bridge that belongs to the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, better known as Metrolink, prompting the need for the commission’s approval. And, because Cal Trout is not a government agency, the group needed the city’s help.

On Aug. 5, the San Juan Capistrano City Council agreed to make the request.

“I think it’s a great project,” Councilmember John Taylor said, adding it would also help equestrians traveling through that area.

“Even the trail connection for the equestrian people getting to the northwest open space is pretty tricky,” he said. “I don’t think I’d want to take a horse across that concrete abuttment and go 15 feet down. Even that part alone is such a benefit. If this all works out, it would be pretty amazing.”

Nate Yancheff, project coordinator for California Trout’s south coast region, said he’s gotten reports from people who have seen steelhead trout in the creek water, but their declining population makes them harder to find in nature.

He said studies have shown their DNA is present in the pool area below the Metrolink structure.

“That’s the barrier and that’s kinda where they’re stuck,” he said.

The trout, part of the salmon family and the only such fish native to Southern California, were listed as endangered in 2024 under the California Endangered Species Act, but declared federally endangered in 1997. The population has been struggling due to development and flood control within and near their habitat.

The fish were once found all throughout the state’s coastal creeks and rivers.

The San Juan Creek watershed, where the project is proposed, has been identified as critical to the recovery of the fish species by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The group’s project would remove two barriers, including a structural support and a grouted rock drop near the railroad bridge and a steep concrete flood channel near the 5 freeway, and create a 600-foot, nature-like fishway that would allow the trout to swim past. The fishway would be created by placing boulders in the creek, which redirect the water flow through the area, allowing fish to bypass the obstacles.

With this in place, trout would be able to swim from their ocean entrance at Doheney Beach all the way to their spawning grounds in Holy Jim Canyon, said Yancheff.

Right now, the barriers are too high, and fish can’t make it past them, he said. The project would also improve water quality and mitigate erosion impacts in the half-mile stretch between the two barrier points.

“It stabilizes the channel and improves trail connections,” said Joel Rojas, the city’s development services director. “During the rainy season, at the high-water mark, you can’t traverse it. And now, during low-stream flow, you have to walk through it, which is not ideal.”

He said California Trout’s proposed 15-foot-wide bridge would get users from one side to the other and would also connect to the city’s Northwest Open Space. If people use the Trabuco Trail heading south, they will meet up with other trails in the area and also connect to more of the city’s open space.

Rojas said that he’d heard from the equestrian community that something needed to be done along the trails to help with connectivity. In the past, he said, there have been concerns that wet conditions and the uneven surface of the current creek crossing make it difficult for equestrian crossings.

The new bridge, which has included input from the equestrian community, would have better traction for the horses, he said.

“This will help with more dry trail crossings,” Rojas said. “During the winter season, (the bridge) will have to be closed with gates during periods of high creek flow.”

Rojas said once the bridge is in place, the city would likely take over its maintenance, but those associated costs will be discussed by the council further down the road as the project gets off the ground, he said.