LAGUNA NIGUEL : City Officials Agree to Join Tollway Panel

In one of their first official acts as a public body, Laguna Niguel officials agreed Tuesday to join a panel that is planning a tollway connecting Newport Beach to southern Mission Viejo.

Members of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency met with city officials before their first regular council meeting to describe the design of the transportation corridor and to discuss the status of the project.

The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, which would slice through the upper half of the new 14-square-mile city of Laguna Niguel, is designed to relieve traffic congestion on major thoroughfares in South County, corridor agency official Donna Stubbs said.

The east-to-west corridor would extend the Corona del Mar Freeway from Newport Beach through the undeveloped area of Laguna Canyon, then through Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel, ending at Interstate 5 south of Crown Valley Parkway. An environmental impact report on the project is due in February.

With the exception of Laguna Beach, all cities in South County have agreed to join the agency. Costa Mesa, Irvine, Newport Beach, Santa Ana and the county also have members on the agency’s board of directors.

Laguna Beach has publicly opposed the transportation corridor as part of the city’s efforts to keep any development out of the Laguna Greenbelt area, an environmentally sensitive region that separates that city from the rest of the county.

Corridor Agency Chairman John C. Cox Jr. said that Laguna Niguel’s participation was important because of a design change to the intersection of the proposed corridor and Interstate 5 at Crown Valley and Avery parkways. The changes must be resolved before the environmental impact report is issued, he said.

Cox also said that negotiations with landowners and concerns by Mission Viejo officials have forced a reworking of the intersection of the corridor and Interstate 5.

Other agency officials said it was critical that Laguna Niguel join the body.

“We need the involvement of this city,” said Mike Ruane, the county’s chief planner. “There is a great deal of urgency.”

Newly elected Laguna Niguel Mayor Patricia C. Bates was selected to act as the city’s representative to the corridor agency, and Councilman Thomas W. Wilson was chosen as the city’s alternate.