Lakeside Wall Rejected by Mission Viejo Panel

To the delight of about 250 residents who packed a meeting room Monday night, the Mission Viejo Planning Commission rejected a revised proposal to build a concrete wall along the southern edge of the lake that serves as the city’s centerpiece.

Even though the Lake Mission Viejo Assn. offered a scaled-down version of the wall, the commission was presented with a stack of petitions signed by 1,975 residents who opposed it.

“It’s dead in the water, so to speak,” Commission Chairman Robert Breton declared. “This may never come back to us again.”

“Obviously, nobody wants a wall,” Planning Director Clint E. Sherrod said after the five-hour public hearing, which was moved from City Hall to an auditorium at Saddleback Community College to accommodate the crowd.

“We knew that a lot of people would attend,” Sherrod said. “It (has been) an emotional issue.”

But while the five commission members unanimously rejected the revised plan, they voted 3-2 to let the association come back with an even more modified design.

The original design called for a 1,624-foot-long wall to be built between the man-made lake and Alicia Parkway. The revised design would have replaced four 100-foot-long sections of concrete block with less obstructive iron railings.

Association officials want to build the wall to shield the lake from the litter and noise that comes from the parkway, a major thoroughfare that funnels traffic from the city to Interstate 5.

Association General Manager William Schwartz argued that when the Santa Margarita residential area is fully developed, as many as 50,000 cars would pass by the lake each day.

“With the increased traffic volume, it would have been a positive thing for the recreational area and homeowners,” Schwartz said.

But residents like W.W. (Tex) Shannon complained that the wall would block the scenic view from along and across the parkway.

“The view is very important to many of us who don’t regularly use the lake” but pay membership dues, said Shannon, who led the petition drive. Mission Viejo residents pay a mandatory membership fee to the association. “For some of us, the view is the only enjoyment we get out of the lake.”

As construction was about to begin in July, residents persuaded the City Council to impose a 45-day moratorium. Then on Aug. 14, the council extended the moratorium to one year.

The issue came up Monday, however, when association officials sought an exemption, arguing that they had already received the necessary building permits before the first moratorium was put in place.

Schwartz said the revised plan created 25% more open space by replacing 417 feet of block with iron railings and including several pavilion-type seating areas that would have allowed pedestrians to enjoy the view of the lake and the surrounding Saddleback Mountains.

Most of the wall would have been three feet high, according to plans, but some parts would have reached five feet.

Two sound engineers testified that the design of the wall would not significantly reduce traffic noise, as association officials contended.

“That argument was a real smoke screen,” Breton said. “With the way it’s designed now, the noise reduction would be negligible, minimal and insignificant.”

With the heavy opposition, Schwartz said after the meeting that he was unsure if any form of wall would ever be built. He said the association’s board of directors is scheduled to meet on Sept. 12 to discuss whether to pursue the issue.

“I can’t tell at this time what the board is going to do,” he said.