Checkbook Tactic : Conservationists Hope to Buy Land to Block Laguna Laurel

A group of Laguna Beach conservationists announced Monday that it wants to buy about 3,000 acres of prime canyon land from the Irvine Co.--part of its last-ditch effort to stop the company’s controversial Laguna Laurel development.

Irvine Co. officials responded that the Laguna Canyon Conservancy’s goals are unrealistic. The land, they said, is not for sale--unless the residents can come up with several hundred million dollars.

Conservancy Chairman Richard Harris said his group has applied for a $10-million grant from a private donor to help raise money.

A private individual “has expressed interest in helping us buy the land,” Harris said Monday at a press conference, held in the Sycamore Hills area along Laguna Canyon Road just north of El Toro Road.

The benefactor and the conservancy are expected to meet today to discuss terms, Harris said.

No Sale, Company Says

But an Irvine Co. spokesman said Monday that the company does not intend to sell the land, which it has been planning to develop for the last eight years.

“While we believe they are both well meaning and serious, we can’t take seriously their proposal,” Irvine Co. spokesman Larry Thomas said. “It’s not realistic in terms of the value of the property.”

The 2,000 acres of Laguna Laurel development area are worth “several hundreds of millions,” Thomas said. The Laguna Laurel project--scheduled to be considered by the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday--would include 3,200 homes, a commercial center and a golf course on about 900 acres. The remaining acreage is dedicated open space for public recreational use.

“(The conservancy’s) intent, as the project reaches its conclusion, is clearly to have no project,” Thomas said.

The land the conservancy wants to buy includes all of the Laguna Laurel development area, plus about 1,000 acres the Irvine Co. has set aside to donate to the county for the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, a four-lane highway proposed to be built through the canyon area.

Harris would not elaborate on the terms of the grant, only that it was $10 million--$5 million of which the unnamed donor would give the conservancy as seed money to raise the millions needed to buy the land. The benefactor would then give another $5 million toward the purchase, he said.

Harris guessed that it would take the conservancy “at least a year” to raise enough money to buy the land.

Conservancy members hope to have the agreement confirmed with the donor before Wednesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting to demonstrate how serious they are about stopping development, Harris said.

“We’re trusting the Board of Supervisors will see the number of people (opposed to the Laguna Laurel development) and at the very least will continue the matter rather than make a decision,” Harris said, referring to 18,000 signatures the conservancy has gathered to demonstrate the number of people who oppose the project.

The conservancy formed in January with the goal of saving Laguna Canyon from development and instead turning it into a national urban wilderness park.

But the Irvine Co. has maintained that its proposed development is environmentally sensitive. The company has been engaged in many “fragile” negotiations with public groups and agencies to come up with the project it now has, Thomas said, noting that 75% of the project area is planned to remain open space.

“The land is not for sale. We’ve been pursuing and have this investment in both the land and the development,” Thomas said. “We did not invite them to come back with an offer.”

But conservancy members are going to try, anyway.

Laguna Beach City Councilwoman Lida Campbell Lenney said at the press conference: “Nowadays, citizens take action into their own hands. . . . People really do understand what’s going on.”

The conservancy in February brought Laguna Beach residents to a California Coastal Commission meeting to object to a California Department of Transportation widening proposal for Laguna Canyon Road. When commissioners rejected the project, they cited the visible opposition as one of their reasons.

Lenney said the conservancy is planning to take a busload of people to the supervisors meeting.