Laguna Niguel Gets OK for Cityhood Vote

Laguna Niguel took a giant step toward cityhood Wednesday as an Orange County commission finally agreed--after 11 meetings over a 2-year period--to let residents decide the question of incorporation.

In an action subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors, the county Local Agency Formation Commission suggested that the Laguna Niguel cityhood proposal go on the June ballot. If voters approve it, incorporation would take place Sept. 1.

Polls have shown that residents overwhelmingly favor incorporation. If the measure wins approval, Laguna Niguel could become Orange County’s 30th city--and the fourth new city in south Orange County in less than two years. Mission Viejo and Dana Point were incorporated last year, and LAFCO recently placed a Laguna Hills cityhood proposal on the June ballot.

March 10 Deadline

The supervisors, who will set the actual election date, in the past have routinely endorsed the decisions of the commission, which screens annexation and city incorporation requests. The election could be held in November should the supervisors not act before March 10, the deadline for placing issues on the June ballot.

More than 80 Laguna Niguel residents at the LAFCO hearing in Santa Ana on Wednesday erupted into wild applause after the commission voted, 3 to 0, in favor of their request. Absent were the two supervisors who sit on the 5-member commission: Gaddi H. Vasquez and Don R. Roth.

“Hallelujah!” cried Marc Leever, a director of the 5-member Laguna Niguel Community Services District.

“We have finally come to what we wanted--a vote of the people,” added a beaming Jim Krembas, president of the district.

A city of Laguna Niguel would have 38,000 residents. LAFCO noted that the first-year budget surplus projected for the city would be more than $1 million, enough, in the opinion of the LAFCO staff, to ensure solvency.

In making the motion that the Laguna Niguel incorporation question be placed on the ballot, LAFCO Commissioner Donald A. Holt Jr. said that no other south county cityhood request has gone through as much trouble and that he was not willing to postpone the matter any longer.

“I’m not willing to further disappoint the people in their right to vote for a city,” Holt said.

Laguna Niguel cityhood proponents filed their incorporation request in December, 1986. They watched in dismay as LAFCO later sliced huge chunks of land from their originally proposed territory, giving it to neighboring Dana Point and Laguna Beach instead. The most controversial action came early last year, when LAFCO detached Laguna Niguel’s claim to a 1.5-mile coastal strip and attached it to the new city of Dana Point. Laguna Niguel fought the action in court, but an Orange County Superior Court judge upheld it.

Wednesday’s meeting proved to be as suspenseful for the cityhood supporters as any of the other situations they encountered along the way.

After hearing 3 hours of testimony from residents and community leaders, LAFCO Chairman Evelyn R. Hart recommended that the commission postpone a decision until its April 5 hearing, at which time it could resolve a border dispute between the proposed city and the city of San Juan Capistrano. But Commissioners Holt and James H. Flora overrode Hart, saying they wanted to dispose of the Laguna Niguel matter once and for all.

This particular dispute involved a 191-acre portion of the Bear Branch Ranch community, whose residents are divided on which city they want to join; a 22-acre tract proposed as the site for an auto park, and a parcel for the Rev. Robert H. Schuller’s Rancho Capistrano church and retreat. All these properties are currently in San Juan Capistrano’s sphere of influence. Determinations of spheres of influence precede decisions about where land boundaries will be when incorporation takes place.

The commissioners decided to keep Bear Branch Ranch within Laguna Niguel but to leave the other two properties in San Juan Capistrano’s sphere.

Laguna Niguel cityhood proponents had expressed concern about the election date because, they said, they would lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in state tax revenue if the city was not incorporated this year. The LAFCO staff recommended an incorporation date of Feb. 1, 1990.

An earlier incorporation now seems likely, but in approving the incorporation request, the commission attached the unprecedented condition that Laguna Niguel repay the county an estimated $800,000 that the county would expend to provide services and that it would lose in tax revenue. Revenue loss to the county was the reason the LAFCO staff asked for the Feb. 1 incorporation date.