LAGUNA NIGUEL : Hearing to Focus on Hillside Protection

The City Council has set up a workshop and public hearing for a controversial hillside-protection proposal approved recently by the city’s Planning Commission.

The proposal, considered a less-restrictive alternative to a citizen-backed initiative supported in a petition drive last year, was initially rejected by the commissioners, who said in December that there were already enough regulations governing hillside development in Laguna Niguel.

Planning Commission Chairman James Olmsted said Wednesday that the initiative was rewritten to allow the city more discretion in approving developments. And he said he takes criticism of the new proposal from both environmentalists and developers as a sign that they are on the right track.

“We must have hit a compromise because nobody seems to be happy with it,” he said.

The proposal, which still requires the City Council’s approval, would provide a series of “performance standards” for hillside development, including a requirement that grading follows the natural slope of the land and that long, planed surfaces be avoided, said Robert Lenard, community development director. It also includes regulations governing hillside landscaping and the amount of earth that can be removed.

The hillside protection and preservation initiative supported in a grass-roots petition drive last year would have prohibited development within 300 feet of ridge tops.

The City Council refused to approve the initiative or put it before voters after deciding it could constitute an illegal taking of property by rendering some properties undevelopable. The possibility of legal challenges could have put the city at considerable financial risk, officials decided.

Olmsted said commissioners attempted to avoid those kinds of legal pitfalls when they rewrote the city proposal.

“We were very careful to make sure the (proposal) we have written would not constitute an unlawful taking of property,” he said. “The regulations are not meant to prohibit development.”