County Panel Urges Approval of Laguna Canyon Project

County planning commissioners Tuesday gave their approval to four development agreements, one of them covering the controversial Laguna Laurel project in Laguna Canyon.

In a 4-1 vote, the County Planning Commission recommended that the Board of Supervisors approve the proposed Laguna Laurel agreement between the county and the Irvine Co.

Commission Chairman Tom Moody, who cast the dissenting vote, said he was concerned that public benefits being offered by the Irvine Co. in exchange for protection of its zoning and land use plan were not much more than the county could get without the agreement.

“I wasn’t convinced that there is anything beyond what you would be required to do anyway,” he said to Irvine Co. officials before casting his vote.

Moody said he also wanted to see in the agreement a firm timetable for completing road improvements. As the proposed agreement is written, the construction timetable, to some degree, is left to the discretion of the Irvine Co., a Planning Department official acknowledged.

Moody joined the four other planning commissioners in unanimously approving the other three proposed agreements, which would protect zoning and land use plans for south county projects that call for a maximum total of 1,440 housing units and 306,000 square feet of commercial space.

As part of the agreement, the three developers--the M.H. Sherman Co., the Standard Pacific Co. and M.J. Brock & Sons--would provide in exchange land as collateral to finance a total of $2.3 million in road improvements and provide benefits such as financing for libraries and sheriff’s substations.

By contrast, the Laguna Laurel project allows a maximum of 3,204 housing units and 475,000 square feet of commercial space in the canyon, which is in an unincorporated area north of Laguna Beach. The Irvine Co. would help finance $13.6 million in road improvements, leave as open space 1,250 acres it owns around the development, donate 1,350 acres to the county for parkland, preserve three natural lakes and provide for an elementary school.

Opponents of the project, including Laguna Beach Mayor Dan Kenney and other city officials, have said that the project would destroy the natural beauty of the canyon, which they describe as the last undeveloped ocean-access coastal canyon between Malibu and Mexico.

At the Planning Commission meeting Tuesday, Laguna Beach Planning Commission member Elizabeth Brown, who said she was representing Kenney, other Laguna Beach officials and proponents of the slow-growth initiative that is on the county’s June 7 ballot, systematically attacked several specific elements of the proposed agreement.

Like Moody, Brown contended that the public benefits could have been obtained without a development agreement. She also said that several elements of the agreement require additional environmental reports to gauge the project’s impact on the surrounding area.

“There is no analysis of the regional infrastructure needs,” Brown told the commissioners.

Similar points were raised by Marielle Leeds, a representative of the Laguna Beach Conservancy, a 3-month-old environmental group that opposes development in or near the canyon. The conservancy has appealed for support to wealthy entertainers who visit the canyon area or who own homes there.

It also opposes the Aliso Viejo development project on the edge of the canyon, plans to widen Laguna Canyon road, and the San Joaquin Corridor freeway project that would go through the canyon.

Last week, the conservancy delivered to county supervisors 7,413 flyers signed by people from all over the country and several foreign countries who visit the canyon area and oppose the Laguna Laurel project. More than 2,000 such flyers had already been sent to the supervisors.

Irvine Co. officials counter the opposition by pointing out that the project, without the development agreement, has gone through extensive public review and has already been approved by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.

At the commission meeting Tuesday, five people who said they were longtime residents of Laguna Beach spoke in favor of the agreement.

Don Black, a member of the board of the Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn., who introduced himself as an environmentalist and a “soon-to-be activist,” urged the commissioners to approve the agreement because “we need to go ahead in attempting to solve some of our (traffic) problems.”

Black praised the Irvine Co. and accused the Laguna Beach City Council of “do-nothingness” in regard to issues involving road improvements, sentiments that were expressed by the other four residents who supported the proposed Laguna Laurel agreement.