The House of a Different Color--Laguna Design Panel Is Right

It’s too bad that the politics of confrontation are brewing around the Laguna Beach Design Review Board (“City Home-Color Code Has Couple Seeing Red,” Feb. 23).

Anyone who visits Laguna Beach can see with his own eyes what a fine job the board does in preserving the village atmosphere of the town, making it one of the most remarkable and desirable places in which to live, not only in Orange County, where cookie-cutter communities are increasingly over-built, but along the entire California coast.

Each neighborhood in Laguna Beach is different, and the Design Review Board does everything it can to preserve the uniqueness of the terrain as well as the individual character of each area.

As a local resident who has recently been involved in the design review process, I think it is important to point out that without the Design Review Board, individual citizens, such as myself, would have no forum in which to express their views about the impact of building and development in their neighborhoods and community. Although not impervious to these concerns, architects are clearly not paid by their clients to focus on community standards, neighborhood concerns or the property rights of others.

It is only through the design review process that the average citizen can have input into the system and provide some of the necessary checks and balances to the strong forces of change and development that we see all around us today.

Let us not be distracted by the anomalous case of what color a resident should paint his house. Laguna Beach is not in the business of legislating what color people paint their houses, and there is no one in town who would like it if they did. The typical Laguna resident is an independent thinker! There is no color code in Laguna Beach, and newspaper coverage was extremely misleading on this point.

However, the city is concerned that applicants honor the agreements they make with the Design Review Board. If the agreement is to build a two-story house, an applicant may not change his mind and add a third story without consulting the board. There is a great deal at stake for the entire community when agreements with the city Design Review Board are broken.

In the case reported, once the applicant is through the city review process and in possession of his new home, he can certainly paint his house any color he wishes!

And let us not be further confused by other complaints from architects whose building designs may have been modified by the board. The Design Review Board sometimes comes under unnecessary fire from local architects when they cannot satisfy the demands of their clients whose building proposals may infringe on the property rights of others or have damaging impacts on the larger community.

MARY DOUGLAS, Laguna Beach