Independent Canyon Folk to Join Up With Laguna

In Laguna Canyon, a rickety bridge with the warning “Use at your risk” leads to an unincorporated community where the roads are unpaved, the streets unlighted and the housing includes mobile homes, an electricity-equipped cave and a chicken coop.

Every few years, the community is wiped out by flood. Brush fires are also a constant threat, as are landslides from the cliffs that tower above.

And yet the residents say they wouldn’t live anywhere else.

“It’s a throwback to rural California,” said Ann Quilter, 42, who lives in a 4-bedroom home precariously situated halfway up a steep hillside.

Although the residents had been content for many years to remain on their 890-acre county enclave surrounded on three sides by the city of Laguna Beach, they are now surrendering their independence for, among other things, better sewers.

With their septic tanks being rendered inoperable due to a steadily rising groundwater table, the residents agreed last year to be annexed by Laguna Beach so that they could tap into a nearby city sewer line.

LAFCO OKs Annexation

On Wednesday, the county Local Agency Formation Commission approved the annexation on a 3-1 vote. And in a surprise move, the agency did not include a condition that would have required Laguna Beach to collect fees from any new developments in the annexed area to help finance construction of the proposed San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, a multi-lane toll road that is fiercely opposed by the city.

The commissioners and alternates who voted for the annexation said they did so to end a standoff that, if continued, would only jeopardize the health and safety of the residents of the canyon. They noted that only about $28,000 in fees could be collected from new development in the canyon.

The city will now hold a hearing and if fewer than 25% of the registered voters in the area oppose the annexation, it will become official.

Canyon residents who attended the meeting in Santa Ana said the commission’s approval of the annexation will prevent some property owners from losing their homes to condemnation by the county.

Before Wednesday, the residents’ only alternative, short of annexation, was to build a sewer plant just for the community. With an estimated construction cost of more than $200,000, canyon resident Sandy Lucas said that each resident would have to pay up to $5,000 just to hook up.

For residents like 78-year-old Susie Scott, who lives on Social Security, that is $5,000 too much. Scott, who has lived in the canyon since 1958, said she is just hoping her septic tank doesn’t go out before the annexation can become final. There will be no tap-in charge for the sewers.

“If one of our septic tanks just goes blooey, we would lose our homes,” Scott said.

The crisis is only the latest of many that have beset the tiny community since people started building in the unincorporated area--in many cases without permits--after World War II.

Flood has been the biggest danger. Situated downstream from the confluence of Laguna Canyon Road and El Toro Road, rainwater running off the surrounding hills is funneled into the canyon and into the lower-lying homes.

Although no one has been killed in recent flooding there, two horses were lost in one flood, a telephone pole was rammed through the middle of a house and a pickup truck was swept away to downtown Laguna Beach.

With dense underbrush and a large number of trees on the lots, fire is also a threat, especially during the dry fall season.

Despite these natural obstacles, people from all walks of life have congregated in the canyon to build homes that appear unorthodox to the rest of suburbanized Orange County.

The most unusual home is the one that a man made in a sandstone cave. John Parlett, a former lifeguard, has equipped it with electricity and running water. Lucas said another person lives in a converted chicken coop.

Many of the other residents operate businesses out of their homes. Lucas and her husband, Richard, for instance, operate a kennel. There are also resident sculptors, woodworkers and other assorted craftsmen who crave the canyon solitude.

Although the residents come from all walks of life, they are attracted to the area by their desire to be left alone by government. For that reason, it was with great difficulty that residents finally acquiesced to the city’s annexation proposal early last year.

The city first announced its annexation intentions in January, 1988. According to Mayor Robert F. Gentry and City Manager Kenneth B. Frank, the unincorporated community represents the last populated stretch of Laguna Canyon that the city has not annexed.

Gentry said that having the entire canyon annexed would give Laguna Beach more control in its goal of preserving the canyon in a natural, rustic state. Frank added that the unincorporated canyon residents are de facto Laguna citizens because of their proximity to the city.

“Their kids go to our schools. They shop here. They (play) here,” Frank said.

Canyon residents agreed that, philosophically, they are Lagunans--except for one important difference. They don’t want anybody telling them how to run their community.

“We don’t want street lights, curbing and all the regulations they have in town,” Scott said.

Many of the residents were also skeptical about joining a city that has a reputation for strict regulation over design and use of neighborhoods.

In the unincorporated community, by contrast, property designs and uses are limited only by the owner’s imagination, Lucas said. The lots are generally big--up to 3 acres--and often contain a horse or two, not to mention chickens, dogs and whatever else comes to roost.

The residents have also relied upon themselves to settle any neighbor disputes, rather than on a city governing body or property owners’ association.

“If my dog barks too much, then someone else asks me to keep him quiet,” Lucas said.

But the independence of this community from any government entity has also been a problem. With the septic tanks in such poor condition, property owners have found they could not build any new houses on their property or even add a bathroom.

One man, Don Amato, a retired realt estate agent, bought a 3.5-acre spread last year upon which he wanted to raise horses and build his “dream home.” He began to raise horses, but the inability to put in any more septic tanks has prevented him from building a house. He is living in a mobile home there until he can figure out what to do.