ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Land Deal Is a Blueprint for Public-Private Cooperation : The lessons learned from Laguna Laurel agreement can be applied to other ventures when all parties act in good faith.

Good novels have a denouement, and the Laguna Canyon story is no exception. The recent transfer of $33 million from the city of Laguna Beach to the Irvine Co. transferred much of the 2,150-acre Laguna Laurel property in Laguna Canyon from private to public ownership. A completed purchase, though not a foregone conclusion, now seems much more likely. Four more payments are due, with Laguna leaders confident of all but the final payment, due in 1995.

Until the final chapter is written, however, the stakes remain high, as a missed payment means the Irvine Co. can build on the balance of property not purchased. The ultimate happy ending requires some combination of public support, government and other grants, and continuing collaborative efforts among a host of unlikely partners.

It is not too early to consider basic themes that emerge from the Canyon story so far--three lessons that may apply to preservation and development efforts alike.

Lesson No. 1 is that corporate officials, politicians and community activists can work together, given two conditions--leaders with vision and an agreed-upon process with clear goals and deadlines.

By way of background, there had emerged--against a backdrop of contentious planning proceedings, picketing and high-stakes litigation--a desire among participants for some resolution to what had become a longstanding, ugly dispute. It was in this context that Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren issued his challenge: “Buy it, within one year, or we’ll build it.” Laguna leaders, politicians and community activists alike picked up the gauntlet. The willingness to come to the table, on the one side, and to “put up or shut up” within a reasonable time frame, on the other side, speaks of leadership with vision all around.

Then there was the process, lesson No. 2: If the medium is the message, then the process is the product.

It was agreed that a scientific survey was needed to gauge popular support for land acquisition, and that the survey instrument would be crafted with the unanimous concurrence of all parties to the discussions, to include corporate, county, community and municipal representatives.

The survey results, countywide majority support and two-thirds support in Laguna Beach, drove the first-stage financing. County dollars would be contingent upon Laguna coming up with the lion’s share of the first payments.

Subsequent discussions then ran from the general to the specific. First there was agreement on priorities for acquisition, then on parameters for acceptable development. Early payments would go for watershed and “viewshed” areas, e.g., areas near the lakes (the only natural lakes in Orange County) and those areas visible from Laguna Canyon Road. Later payments would go for areas of less environmental value. That the most developable parcels were the least valuable environmentally is but one example of the group’s serendipitous good fortune.

By the time the independent appraisal of the property came in, and the curtain rose on the inevitable opera over price and terms, the group already had spent months working together, and had shared many successes in terms of agreements on process and on priorities. This track record of working together was the essential social lubricant for making it through all the way to the end. Were there to have been an effort straightaway to negotiate “the deal,” it is highly doubtful that any deal would ever have been struck.

Lesson No. 3 is that voters will embrace any “deal,” given a perception of able leaders and a give-and-take by all parties. In November of 1990, Laguna Beach voters approved a bond measure to help provide the first payment for the canyon, by a margin of 79.7%, the highest for a property tax hike in California since 1956.

The Laguna Laurel property lies at the heart of what should become a large urban wilderness park. The spirit of the “save the canyon” campaign has been, in part, to avoid development in the only large, unspoiled coastal canyons between Malibu and Mexico, and instead to buckle up an otherwise fragmented greenbelt of roughly 16,000 contiguous acres. But another, key part of the “canyon spirit” has been that of working together to turn lemons into lemonade.

If the partners in this continuing story, still bitter rivals even today on other complex issues, don’t forget the lessons that got them this far, the result will be an Orange County story of sweet success--and a case study of how contentious disputes can be transformed to create value for all concerned.