Planners look to the people

Barbara Diamond

The Planning Commission wants the community to participate in

revisions to the land use element of the general plan -- which will

determine the course of the city’s development for the next 10 to 20

years.

A workshop will be held March 23 to set goals for the element,

based on concerns voiced by the public at the first land use

workshop, held Feb. 16.

“We are undertaking important work for the city,” commission Chair

Anne Johnson said. “It is essential for the community to

participate.”

Revisions to the element are mandated by the state. The last

revision to Laguna’s element was in the 1980s.

The commission asked participants at the first workshop to

concentrate on issues, not solutions. Issues may be telephoned to

city Principal Planner Carolyn Martin at (949) 497-0398 or e-mailed

to [email protected].

“Don’t editorialize,” Johnson said.

Five former commissioners were among the 45 participants at the

February workshop.

“The commission and the general plan resolve some neighborhood

[land use] issues,” said former commissioner Wayne Peterson, also a

former councilman. “I had a call from a lady in Lagunita where the

commission had recently done a specific plan. She told me about a new

owner, who had paid umpteen-million dollars and wanted a really big

house. She gave him a copy of what was allowable in the neighborhood

and he said no one had told him.”

Peterson said neighborhood compatibility should be maintained and

the commission should be the initiator.

“If the average [home] is 18-feet high, don’t approve 26 feet,”

Peterson said. “We need to start looking back on the values of the

community.”

Better enforcement is needed, said Becky Jones, also a former

commissioner. Some of the issues brought out at the meeting were

issues discussed by the commission when she served 20 years ago.

“We need to remember that Laguna Beach is often referred to as

‘built-out’ and we have standards that ensure that,” Jones said. “We

need to focus on recycling and that doesn’t mean one story becoming

two stories, a 2,500-square-foot home becoming a 5,000 square-foot

home, two businesses becoming five or one street-to-street lot

becoming two lots.”

Carter Mudge said there is tension between describing the town as

built-out with a goal of village preservation and property rights.

That tension has always been recognized, according to City Atty.

Philip Kohn. Courts recognize that governments take actions that can

have the effect of diminished property values; however, “taking”

occurs only when the government action reduces the property value to

zero, he said.

“When property values increase 25% a year, I don’t know how that

can be a taking,” former Commissioner Doug Reilly said.

Ed Almanza, board member of Ocean Laguna Foundation, raised the

issue of impacts on coastal resources and neighborhoods.

“We propose to develop some means to send visitors to areas that

can accommodate them, shaping land use to direct them to areas with

facilities,” Almanza said. “We will conduct an inventory of coastal

resources and based on that, we could figure where we want visitors

to be.”

Some of the issues raised at the workshop also pertain to other

elements of the general plan.

Loma Terrace resident Michael Hoag said the element and city

boards should make clear the concepts of “Livable Cities” and

“Traffic Calming.”

“People go crazy when they hear those terms and they need to

understand what they mean,” Hoag said. “I also would like the

commission to understand ‘hyper-mobility induced traffic,’ and

discuss it.”

However, the land use element coordinates and synthesizes polices

in the six other mandated general plan elements: circulation,

housing, conservation, open space, noise and safety, and may even go

beyond physical planning to address social and economic issues,

according to Johnson.

The element establishes a diverse set of community goals and

objectives to be considered in decision making, according to Johnson.

For more information, call (949) 497-0361.