No self-respecting Dana Point residents will tell you they're glad developer Sanford Edward, after a protracted battle, is finally paving over the slope above Strands beach to build mega-mansions. But his fight with the city and the California Coastal Commission has led to a few legitimately valuable concessions, including the roping-off of a trail on the part of the Headlands that we all imagined would have been the most lucrative to destroy: the actual headland. The plateau peninsula, at certain junctures in the trail, provides a three-direction view of the whitecaps, the beaches, the ships, the harbor and the vast blue expanse that development will never claim.
