City goes own way on Alta

Barbara Diamond

The City Council rejected the advice of its own staff and Planning

Commission and the pleas of neighbors and environmentalists to retain

long-standing building restrictions on an Alta Laguna lot next to

open space.

“When is a deal not a deal?” Top of the World resident Karen

Schwager asked.

The council voted 3 to 2 at the Feb. 11 meeting to modify limits

on the height and width of construction and the requirement for a

turnaround placed on Lot 8 at 3355 Alta Laguna Blvd. in Tract 10054.

The council returned the project to the Design Review Board to be

judged by the standards of the mansionization ordinance, which were

not in effect when the board first approved the project with

conditions. The council also voted 3 to 2 to certify a supplemental

environmental report for the Lot 8 project that the Planning

Commission had rejected 4 to 1.

Thirteen residents spoke against amending the conditions of

approval at the meeting.

Attorney Paul J. Weinberg spoke in favor of modifying restrictions

that limited the building height to 20 feet above grade -- no higher

than 15 feet above grade at the midpoint of the front building

setback line -- and the width to 65 feet. He said the modifications

were justified because the property owner had not been informed of

the restrictions at the time of purchase.

“Even the city didn’t know about the restrictions,” Weinberg said.

In 1982, height and width restrictions were placed on all lots in

Tract 10054. That information and the requirement for a turn-around

were not included in the property file for Lot 8, or in the title

search when the lot was purchased, but were included in the tract map

file.

“The city made a mistake,” Mayor Pro Tem Cheryl Kinsman said. “We

can’t get around that. Fair is fair.”

Kinsman voted with council members Elizabeth Pearson and Steven

Dicterow against the restrictions and in favor of the supplemental

environmental report.

City Attorney Philip Kohn informed the council in October 2002

that conditions of approval were applicable despite the lack of

information in city files. The lack might be an embarrassment, but

not an impediment to council modifications of the conditions, he

opined.

The property owner has known at least since 2001 of the

restrictions. His request to modify the height and setback limits and

to eliminate the required turnaround was denied by the Planning

Commission in May of that year.

“Knowledge of the [conditions] were known two years ago,” said

Councilman Wayne Baglin, who voted with Mayor Toni Iseman to retain

the restrictions. “What’s being asked for is design driven. The

height is substantially higher than allowed (by the restrictions).”

The property owner’s proposal includes a 5,950 square foot home,

with 2,790 square feet of decks and a 629-square-foot garage. It is

close to an open space trailhead and a park accessed by Alta Laguna

Boulevard.

Architect Mark Singer, who designed a home next door to fit in the

tract guidelines, designed the Lot 8 project.

“It’s a shame this charade has gone on for almost three years,

wasting hundred of hours of time put out by the city staff, the

council and the public,” said Laguna Canyon Conservancy President

Carolyn Wood, for whom the view knoll near the property was named.

The council decided in December 2001 that it wanted a supplemental

environmental report on the effects of reductions in the tract

standards before considering the property owner’s request for

modifications, and then only after a review of the report by the

Planning Commission.

Traffic and circulation and views were the focus of the report,

which reached the commission almost two years later.

The commission voted 4 to 1 in January to deny certification of

the environmental report. Commissioner Norm Grossman dissented. The

commission recommended that if the council approved the report, the

Lot 8 project should be subject to the mansionization ordinance.

Next to the tract requirements, mansionization standards were

deemed the next best choice in terms of aesthetic and visual effect,

according to the report.

“I care about public views and I am on record as opposing this,”

Jeanette Merrilees said.

The report based its traffic effects on standard models, which

only count car trips generated by homes in a cul-de-sac, said Wood, a

veteran of the Parking, Traffic and Circulation Committee.

“That doesn’t work here,” she said.

City Manager Ken Frank said the cul-de-sac is a “beehive of

activity,” and that’s in February.

“On Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m., the cul-de-sac was

full,” Frank said. “The [environmental report] is negligent in not

doing a summer traffic count, but why would you not opt for optimal

safety?”

Councilwoman Pearson said the council made its decision to prepare

a supplemental environmental review knowing it was winter.

“They didn’t ask for a summer count, so we got data for that

period,” Pearson said. “This needs to go to the Design Review Board

under mansionization review. The “Environmental Report] is

certifiable. The turn-around needs to be addressed.”

Planning Commissioner Grossman, who supported the supplemental

report, said the turn-around is a safety issue for ingress and

egress, which had been determined by the report not to be necessary

to the project.

The commission disagreed with conclusions in the report, supported

by the city’s director of Public Works, that the turn-around did not

compromise safety, he said.

Opponents of the decision to eliminate the turn-around said the

report did not take into account hikers, bikes, dog walkers, kids on

skateboards or mothers with strollers on their way to the park.

“I walk in the park two-to-six days a week,” Rosalind Russell

said. “The turn-around should be a requirement.”

Unlike the Planning Commission, which recommended denying

certification of the supplemental environmental report as well as the

request for modifications in the conditions of approval on the

project, the staff said the report is adequate, but opposed changes

in the conditions.

“If we -- meaning the county and the city -- had known there was

going to be a park, we would have put more restrictions on the

development,” said Harry Huggins, planner and acquisition coordinator

of the county’s Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department, which manages

the opens space it leases from the city.

“If we had owned the property at the time, we could have requested

certain conditions as the adjacent property owner and more

restrictions would have been applied,” he said. “What a loss of the

public’s view shed.”