Some post-Thanksgiving turkeys

BARBARA DIAMOND

We’ve had a week to digest our Thanksgiving dinners, eat the

leftovers and reflect on how lucky we are to live in Laguna.

Now it’s time to talk turkeys. Here are a few to chew on.

CAN’T SEE THE HEDGES FOR THE TREES: First the views, privacy is

the major concern of neighbors of a proposed remodel or new home

construction.

The Design Review Board takes those concerns seriously, relocating

windows or decks on a project to preserve seclusion. Yet, the City

Council voted to strip residents’ privacy from the view of passing

strangers by limiting the height of hedges to four feet, the same

height as front yard fences, reasoning that hedges blocked views and

were unfriendly.

However, the council took revisions to the toothless tree

ordinance off the Planning Commission work list, advising supporters

of a stronger ordinance to put it on the ballot to gauge public

support.

Trees failed to make the cut. Hedges still must be.

PRESERVATION: The owners of historically registered homes are

given incentives -- variances from the standard code, in return for

keeping the historical integrity of the structure.

Doesn’t always work. The council overturned a stop-work order on a

registered home, which the owner was siding with faux wood.

Historical integrity? Excuse me.

“It was a flagrant violation of a commitment to the city and the

heritage status was, at the least morally abused,” said Councilman

Wayne Baglin, the lone council opponent of the reversal.”

Even more abusive: preservation ordinance guidelines that conflict

that conflict with other ordinances that govern development.

“We have no decision-making powers what-so-ever,” Heritage

Committee member Molly Bing said.

The committee is supporting revisions to the Preservation

Ordinance that extends its powers.

THE SKATEBOARD PARK RUN-AROUND: YMCA proposed building and

maintaining a first-class skateboard park in Laguna Beach, if the

city would provide the land. The city welcomed the proposition and

after much debate settled on the Act V parking lot in Laguna Canyon.

Local attorney, Larry Nokes, YMCA’s spokesman, was told to bring a

solid proposal to the council. Plans were underway, when Nokes was

told that Act V was not available after all, to accept the Bark Park

as an alternative to no Skateboard Park -- and that site was

approved.

YMCA went back to the drawing board, but dog lovers and rational

people who know that dogs and skateboards are incompatible,

prevailed. The City Council suggested that Big Bend would be better,

although egress and ingress were a tad dangerous. You think?

Once again, YMCA went back to the drawing board. Lo and behold,

the city bought two properties above Big Bend with a state

allocation. A skateboard park there was no longer an option.

Councilman Steve Dicterow counseled the YMCA to hold the city to

its approval of the Bark Park -- as an alternative to no skateboard

park.

Sound familiar?

The YMCA deserves better.

The difficulty in finding a suitable spot for the skateboard park

may mean that there is no suitable spot. If so, the city should have

the grace to ask YMCA to opt out of the agreement, rather than

stringing it along for more years of frustration or letting the

well-intentioned group end up with a badly located park that has

virtually no parking and alienates its neighbors.

FOREST AVENUE PARKING: Here’s one turkey that got its just

desserts.

After complaints, the city measured the parallel parking spaces

re-striped when the avenue was resurfaced and found some were

sub-standard, other overly generous. Spaces were modified to provide

a minimum of 20 feet per space, except at the corners. Four feet

separates each space. No spaces were lost in the revision

However, struggles with the diagonal parking, which does not allow

for wider, longer vehicles than the standard models, still have

drivers gnashing their teeth.

CHANGE FOR THE WORSE: As for that yellow eyesore with its multiple

signs on the lawn in front of City Hall, well, I ask you.

If there is an issue you’d like to give the bird, just send it

along Coastline Pilot Editor Alicia Lopez -- as if she didn’t have

enough on her plate.

* OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline

Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box

248, Laguna Beach, 92652, hand-deliver to 384 Forest Ave., Suite 22;

call (949) 494-4321 or fax (949) 494-8979.