Council approves parking project

The interim plan for Village Entrance will move ahead; signage and building colors may be revised.The City Council gave a green light Tuesday to an interim parking plan for what is destined to become the Village Entrance.

A unanimous council approved the parking plan recommended by the planning commission but delayed approval of proposed signage and paint colors for buildings that will be left on the site at least temporarily.

“There are so many signs proposed, it almost looks like sign pollution,” Laguna Canyon Conservancy President Carolyn Wood said.

“But there are no signs on Coast Highway directing motorists to the parking.”

Councilwoman Toni Iseman volunteered to head a committee to review the sign program and color scheme. She asked Wood and Rick Stein, executive director of the Laguna Playhouse, to serve on the committee.

“There were two overriding concerns for the Village Entrance: parking and aesthetics,” Stein said. “We are not dealing with the aesthetics.”

Stein said planting a couple of trees would not do the trick until a Village Entrance overhaul is completed, which could be five or 10 years down the road, depending on the city’s financial position.

“We have an obligation to clean up the site,” Iseman said.

“And we have to do the signs right. We would be better off with fewer signs, with less words and better directions.”

The California Coastal Commission is requiring temporary-use and coastal-development permits for the project.

Planning commissioners recommended the addition of 144 new parking spaces, 107 of which would be used by city employees. City vehicles and equipment will take up 14 spaces, and the public will get 23.

However, relocating designated employee parking to the area now occupied by the corporation yard, south of the employee lot, will open up 167 spaces for public parking, bringing the total to the 190 spaces required by the Coastal Commission.

Assistant City Manager John Pietig presented the project to the council.

He showed a colored rendering of the buildings at the back of the site and said the planning commission recommended painting the buildings and landscaping the area.

“I love the natural rust,” Iseman said. “It is less offensive than the bland colors we call earth tones.”

She said some of the buildings slated to remain on the site are almost as bright as the green Waste Management trash containers, which she finds objectionable.

Entry and exit from Broadway will be eased when a proposed stop light is installed at the crosswalk to Irvine Park, better known as the Festival of Arts grounds.

The planning commission’s review of the city’s proposal also included a traffic study and plans for landscaping and lighting.

No date was set for Iseman’s committee to report its findings to council.

The committee will meet with the arts commission to discuss appropriate signage and paint colors.