LAGUNA BEACH : Laguna Laurel to Be City-Irvine Co. Topic

City leaders will meet with Irvine Co. officials Friday to discuss a new proposal for the hotly contested Laguna Laurel housing project.

“The council doesn’t want it (the offer) discussed until it’s presented to the Irvine Co.,” Mayor Robert F. Gentry said. “But I think it’s extremely reasonable, and we’re serious.”

An Irvine Co. spokeswoman also declined to comment until after Friday’s meeting.

The city’s proposal will counter a previous Irvine Co. offer to sell 276 acres, including the planned golf course portion, of the 2,150-acre Laguna Laurel site for about $38 million, Gentry said.

“In return, we’d have to agree to support the remainder of the project,” he said.

The remainder includes construction of about 3,000 homes, a number that environmentalists say would damage the sensitive Laguna Canyon ecosystem, increase traffic, destroy Indian burial sites and produce harmful storm drain runoff.

Council members prepared the counteroffer in a special closed session Tuesday night after hearing testimony from angry residents and groups, including Village Laguna, Laguna Canyon Property Owners, Laguna Canyon Conservancy and Laguna Greenbelt.

“We felt the item must be placed on the (City Council) agenda,” Gentry said. “The people must have some say.”

Several residents at the meeting urged rejection of the Irvine Co. proposal, saying acceptance would do nothing to mitigate damage to the canyon or the city.

“We would buy the liability for downstream damage (from the project),” said a Laguna Canyon property owner. “It would be a condemnation of downtown.”

A highlight of the emotional meeting was the playing of a recording which had just arrived from singer Jose Feliciano. Against a guitar background, the Orange County resident urged community support of a protest march through the canyon scheduled for Saturday.