Laguna Artists’ Condo Plan May Be Dead Due to City’s 11-Unit Limit

A move to build the first “live/work” condominium project in Orange County for artists may be abandoned in wake of a Laguna Beach City Council action that cut the size from 14 to 11 units, project backers said Wednesday.

The intent of the $1.3-million Laguna Canyon project is to provide affordable housing and work-studio spaces for painters, ceramists and sculptors to keep them from leaving the city. An ordinance allowing this type of condo was adopted unanimously by the council last summer.

Laguna Beach, a scenic seaside city, is known as an art colony, and summer art festivals attract hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

But the council Tuesday night, acting on the first such proposed condo project, voted 3 to 2 for 11 units, which some observers described as a compromise decision.

“As far as we’re concerned, our project is dead in the water. It just isn’t economically feasible for anything less than 14 units,” said Miriam Smith of Laguna Beach, one of the chief organizers of the 3-year-old project “That’s what they (opponents) have wanted all along--to kill this venture,” she said Wednesday.

However, Ray Unger, spokesman for the Canyon Acres Neighborhood Assn., contended that even at 11 units the project is still a major detriment to the rustic Canyon Acres neighborhood that is adjacent to the proposed condo site. The association is a residential group that has strongly opposed the project.

“Our position hasn’t changed (in three years). We’re all for the idea of affordable quarters for artists. But this project will bring too much traffic, too much condo density. It will run counter to everything we cherish about this neighborhood’s low-key livability,” said Unger, who had urged the council to cut the project to eight units. Although a maximum of 14 units is allowed under the ordinance, the city Planning Commission on April 29 voted 3 to 2 to limit the proposed Canyon Acres Drive project to 10 units. Among the majority backing the 10-unit limit was Commissioner Elizabeth Brown, who is also president of the Canyon Acres Neighborhood Assn.

Mayor Neil Fitzpatrick, who backed the 11-unit limit approved at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, was among those who characterized the action as a compromise. “As in other situations, we have to act on a case-by-case basis. And in this case, we believe the (11-unit) figure is a livable one.”

1-Acre Site

Under the artists’ proposal, the condos would be built on a one-acre vacant parcel at Laguna Canyon Road and Canyon Acres Drive, across from the site of the annual summer Art-A-Fair festival.

The site’s owner, Vernon Spitaleri, former publisher of the Laguna Beach News-Post, said he bought the site 17 years ago with hopes of locating his newspaper there. But that proposal and others, including plans for a nursery and a convalescent home, never got past the discussion stages, he said.

Three years ago, Spitaleri agreed to the idea of the artists’ live/work project and gave the sponsoring artists an option to buy the site for $400,000.

In the 14-unit, two-level plan submitted last year to the city, the proposed units ranged in size from 780 square feet to 1,200 square feet. Each unit contained both living spaces and a work studio. According to builder David Young, the per-unit purchase cost was estimated at between $85,000 and $140,000.

Twelve artists, including six who now live in other Orange County cities, are partners in the project. Each has already committed $6,000 for site and design planning, Smith said.

Smith and other project backers said the exodus of artists from Laguna Beach has been increasing significantly. In recent years, about 25% of the artists who had maintained studios in the industrially zoned Laguna Canyon corridor have left to find less expensive facilities in other areas, they said.

Rising Costs Cited

Hal Pastorius, one of the condo project’s key organizers, has moved his sculpture studio to Laguna Hills. The rent for his 2,400-square-foot Laguna Canyon warehouse facility had risen to $1,500 a month, he said, and his present 1,900-square-foot facility is costing him $1,100 a month.

Pastorius and Smith said the condo project is one of a few of its kind in California. Most efforts to provide affordable live/work spaces for artists have been to renovate existing structures. The Laguna Beach proposal, they said, is unusual in that it would build structures specially for artist quarters.

The City Council adopted the ordinance to permit the condos in the canyon corridor last Aug. 19, despite protests from the Canyon Acres Neighborhood Assn. The city said at the time that such projects were to be used by artists only and were to be restricted to residential and studio uses.