LAGUNA NIGUEL : City Licks Chops Over Aliso Viejo

Officials of the recently formed city of Laguna Niguel are considering the annexation of Aliso Viejo, a 6,600-acre planned community owned by the Mission Viejo Co., according to a city report.

This plan was mentioned in a March 22 letter sent to the Local Agency Formation Commission as part of Laguna Niguel’s application for initial approval to annex two small parcels of land north of the city. The request was denied on Wednesday.

In the letter, Mayor Patricia C. Bates said that as a combined city of Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo, both communities would be able to deal more effectively with regional issues and save money by avoiding duplication of city services and administration.

“Based on preliminary studies that have been done on including the Aliso Viejo Planned Community in the city of Laguna Niguel, there are various factors which indicate this would be to the mutual benefit of the citizens of Laguna Niguel and the citizens of Aliso Viejo,” Bates wrote.

Bates added that the two adjacent communities are already linked because they share schools, recreation facilities and open space.

Officials of the Mission Viejo Co. and the Aliso Viejo Community Assn. were quick to criticize the idea of annexation, saying that Aliso Viejo should be allowed to develop into a separate city. The 11-year-old community of Aliso Viejo now has about 4,000 residents but is expected to grow to about 50,000 residents by 2005.

“You don’t want to take pieces of it and give it to adjoining cities,” Mission Viejo spokesman Richard Watson said of Aliso Viejo. “We want to allow it to mature.”

Don Swift, director of the Aliso Viejo Community Assn., said in a March 15 letter to Bates that the annexation would “seriously hinder the natural evolution of Aliso Viejo from a planned community to cityhood.”

“I wouldn’t support it,” Swift added Wednesday. “We (the two communities) are just too different.”

LAFCO denied Laguna Niguel’s request to include the two parcels in the city’s “sphere of influence,” a step that precedes the formal request for annexation. One of the parcels is within the boundaries of the proposed city of Laguna Hills, and the other is in Aliso Viejo.

Commission members denied the “sphere of influence” request pending a decision about whether the Laguna Hills cityhood issue will be placed on the November ballot.

The Laguna Hills cityhood application still must gain the approval of LAFCO and the County Board of Supervisors to make the ballot.

Bates said city officials would wait until after the election before pursuing either a second try to take control of the two small parcels or opening a dialogue with Aliso Viejo officials on creating a single city out of the two communities.

“We would not presume to intrude on their desire for self-determination,” Bates said, adding that the city has taken no official stand on the Aliso Viejo annexation proposal.