Isn’t Laguna Beach still an artists’ colony?
Artist Louis Longi has not done anything wrong.
He bought a patch of land with dreams of building a home for artists — a live-work project that could help jumpstart a flagging Laguna Beach art colony.
With artists leaving town in droves because of the cost of living, Longi hoped to provide some affordable housing units.
Since 2008, he has submitted plans, studies and reports in order to satisfy relentless government officials. He’s worked with neighbors and friends to inform and compromise.
He’s checked every box, jumped through every hoop — and then some.
The bureaucrats finally said OK, but on Sept. 22, in an air-conditioned office in Santa Ana, Orange County Superior Court Judge Kim G. Dunning looked over her decision one last time.
For more than two months she had been poring over mistakes made by a laundry list of public agencies, including the city of Laguna Beach and the state’s now-notorious Coastal Commission.
At 3:34 p.m., she pressed enter on her computer and made it final. Within about an hour, Longi learned of his fate.
He can’t build — for now, at least. The reasons all rest outside of his control.
“It’s heart-wrenching,” Longi said. “I followed all the rules. I’m astonished. I’m just baffled.”
Among other things, the judge said that the city’s watershed maps and rules governing Laguna Canyon Creek were suspect.
The city, basically, couldn’t read a map. There is an official U.S. geological document called the Major Watersheds and Drainage Courses (MWDC) map.
Instead of providing a clear, proper copy, there was a poor, blurry rendering in the record. No one could prove the real designation and import of the creek, and the Coastal Commission was no help.
Dunning, therefore, called them on it.
“The Coastal Commission, like the City Council before it, did not determine whether Laguna Canyon Creek was in fact on the map or omitted from the map,” she wrote. “Without question, Laguna Canyon Creek is a ‘Blue-line stream’ and a ‘significant watercourse’ in Laguna Canyon.”
These descriptions were critical to the project because they impacted the setbacks. Longi was told by the city that he could build 25 feet from the center of the creek. The judge, however, ruled that any construction needed to be 25 feet from the top of the creek bed.
The difference is significant and potentially impacts dozens of other developments within the canyon. Anyone taking a stroll along the creek will see that no property owner adheres to the more stringent setback. In fact, most violate any semblance of a setback.
In addition to the creek details, there was something else in the ruling that cut Longi off at the knees: the ex-parte debacle.
This issue had absolutely nothing to do with Longi’s project, per se. It was a failing on the part of the coastal commissioners. Essentially, they violated public disclosure laws.
The Coastal Act requires that they promptly report any contact with developers, environmentalists and others that occur outside of official proceedings.
They rarely do that — as in nearly 600 alleged violations over the last two years.
Longi’s case was the first known decision where a judge cited ex-parte violations as a basis for overturning a commission decision.
Several other lawsuits are challenging coastal development permits partly on the grounds that commissioners improperly disclosed their ex-parte contacts, according to reports.
In Longi’s case, Dunning found that six commissioners who voted on the project in January 2015 should not have done so because they had not properly disclosed ex-parte meetings involving the proposal.
“When commissioners do not satisfy the statutory requisites, they lose the right to participate in the hearing and the vote,” Dunning wrote. “These consequences are not to be dismissed as technicalities, they strike at the fundamental fairness and integrity of the process.”
Those commissioners were Gregory Cox, Erik Howell, Steve Kinsey, Martha McClure, Effie Turnbull-Sanders and Mark Vargas.
On Oct. 5, the Coastal Commission will review the results of the Longi case, most likely to determine its legal exposure. It’s one of 11 litigation cases on the docket.
But the public won’t know what is discussed because the meeting will happen during closed session.
Those are the rules.
Rules that Longi has followed to his detriment.
“I did everything to code,” he said. “I even followed what the city has been telling me for 20 years, and that’s artist live-work. I scaled the project to meet the needs of affordable housing for artists. I did everything I was asked and this decision comes against us.”
The city of Laguna Beach has some soul-searching to do here.
Is it going to continue speaking out of both sides of its mouth? Or will it step up and properly support land-use rights and building codes?
Not to mention there’s the moral imperative to encourage affordable housing for artists.
Because, you know, we’re supposed to be an artists’ colony.
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DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at hansen.dave@gmail.com.