S. Laguna Resort Revises Project

Developers of the oceanfront Montage Resort announced plans Monday to build a sister property -- a 90-room, Craftsman-style lodge with a redesigned nine-hole golf course and condominiums nestled in a South Laguna canyon.

The preliminary plan also calls for new trails between the beach and a county wilderness park and designates about 250 acres as open space, said John Mansour, the Athens Group vice president of development.

“It’s a tall order and tall task to come up with something that does justice to the land,” Mansour said Monday.

The Athens Group and Montage sparked concern last year when the community learned that resort investors had bought nearby properties -- the 90-acre Aliso Creek Inn and Golf Course, and the 240-acre Driftwood Estates -- creating anxiety over what the owners had planned. Last fall, that anxiety turned to outrage when word spread of a preliminary proposal that would have expanded the golf course onto county parkland.

The Athens Group, developer of the Montage Resort & Spa, is committed to an “environmentally sensitive” plan for the 310 acres it owns in the foothills above Aliso Beach, Mansour said.

The proposal will be publicly unveiled at a town hall meeting Wednesday, and formally submitted to the city later this year or early next year.

Last week, the Athens Group confirmed that it no longer planned to build the 18-hole golf course. And Monday, Mansour pledged that the redesigned course would not be “an expansion of the golf course into the wilderness area.”

“It contemplates development only on property we own,” he said of the golf course. The course will remain affordable to locals, he said.

“This proposal is a whole lot better than the first one,” said Elisabeth Brown, president of Laguna Greenbelt, an environmental group dedicated to preserving open space. “They had some interesting ideas. It’s all very conceptual still, but I think they’re headed in the right direction.”

The inn will be increased from 64 rooms to as many as 98 rooms. Like the Montage, it will be Craftsman style, evoking Laguna Beach’s heritage.

Rooms will offer views of the canyon. A main lodge and several separate casitas will be built.

Forty to 50 condos or villas will also be built within the current inn and golf course site.

If everything goes according to plan, Mansour said, the inn will be operated by Montage Hotels & Resorts.

On adjacent property also owned by the Montage and its partners, the Athens Group plans to build 11 homes. That property, known as Driftwood Estates, has already been zoned and approved for 11 single-family homes.

About 2 acres will also be designated as a YMCA site.

In addition, Mansour said the Athens Group and Montage would help improve water quality of polluted Aliso Creek by diverting runoff, installing proper drainage and filtering drains. The urbanized creek runs through the golf course.

“What we can commit to is taking a leadership role ... and work toward fixing the water quality problem,” Mansour said.

During the past week, The Athens Group has been holding briefings with neighbors and other stakeholders -- some of whom had accused them of keeping residents in the dark about their plans.

Wednesday’s town hall meeting will be held at City Hall and broadcast over local cable.

“I think it’s very encouraging,” Brown said. “They don’t have everything figured out yet. I hope they keep an open mind through Wednesday when they will get a lot of input from people who are seeing the plan for the first time.”