FORECLOSED: Tuscan Hills Development

Desert Local News ^ | 3/30/07 | DLN

[BJungNan]

FORECLOSED: Tuscan Hills Development

The lender has repossessed developer Mayer-Luce’s ambitious Tuscan Hills development in Desert Hot Springs.

“Yes, Mayer-Luce was the borrower and we have foreclosed on the property. We took back the property,” said Jeffery Lubin, President of Scripps Investments and Loans as he confirmed for Desert Local News that the Tuscan Hills project is no longer part of the Mayer-Luce development portfolio.

Scripps Investments and Loans, a private equity lender based in La Jolla, California, provided over $38 million in financing for the Tuscan Hills project. Documents obtained by Desert Local News show the property was sold at public auction January 27, 2007.

Scripps was the highest bidder, taking control of the property with a bid of $38,448,256.59, for the unpaid debt Mayer-Luce owed Scripps on the project. According to those documents, Scripps held 99.835% interest in the project.

Lubin said his company is now studying the property and will make some minor improvements. However, Lubin said it is too early to tell if his company will go ahead with full development of the project.

The Tuscan Hills property is the second development Scripps has repossessed from Mayer-Luce. In Indio, Scripps took possession of the partially-built Vineyards project. There, Lubin said, his company decided to go ahead and finish the development. The Vineyards is to be a high-end motor coach property with a golf course.

Excerpt-Continue story here

[BJungNan]

I would buy it, but like all these land deals developers have the right people under their total control to enable the kind of zoning that only artificially makes the price prohibitive. Take a look at every Riverside county supervisor’s campaign contributions’ and you will find developers make up for 90% or more of the total contributions. When former supervisor Jim Venable left, he suddenly was found to been spending far beyond his financial means. He was what you could call a “sugar daddy” for developers, for which he never met a development proposal he did not approve (for a price of course).

I'll tell you how blatant it has been here. The developer hired one of the city council members. And she moved into one of the houses in the development he built. It is, of course, all very innocent.