LAGUNA BEACH : City Rejects Latest Canyon Project Plan

On the eve of a massive protest march to save Laguna Canyon from development, city officials Friday rejected the Irvine Co.’s latest compromise plan to quell opposition to its Laguna Laurel master-planned community at the mouth of the canyon.

Although neither city officials nor Irvine Co. representatives would reveal details of the Friday meeting, the city confirmed it had rejected the company’s proposal and presented a counterproposal to Irvine Co. Senior Vice President Gary Hunt.

The Irvine Co. had offered to sell about 10% of the 2,150-acre project to the city of Laguna Beach for roughly $40 million. In exchange, the city would have agreed to accept the rest of the project, including the construction of some 2,800 homes, and drop its opposition to the planned San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, which will cut through Laguna Canyon.

“We’ve all agreed not to talk about any specifics right now,” said Mayor Pro Tem Lida Lenney after the morning meeting. “But I see movement where I didn’t see movement before.”

Hunt agreed the meeting was “good.”

“It was direct and courteous,” he said in a statement. “ . . . We’ll take a serious look at it (the counterproposal) and study it.”

Lenney said Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren, who was out of town, was expected to attend the next session scheduled for Nov. 15. “He (Hunt) wished us a good walk,” said Lenney. “We invited him, but he said he’s busy.”

The protest walk, co-sponsored by the city of Laguna Beach, Laguna Canyon Conservancy, Laguna Greenbelt Inc., Village Laguna and the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce, is the latest effort to halt the development that opponents say would destroy canyon wildlife and burial sites and aggravate canyon flooding into Laguna Beach.

The Laguna Laurel project, slated to preserve 1,221 acres of open space, has received preliminary approval from the Board of Supervisors and is scheduled for public hearings later this month.

The march is expected to draw thousands of people to the canyon today, bringing together a wide range of environmentalists, civic leaders and other people concerned about rapid growth and development in South County.