Laguna Residents Praise Design Board

This is in regard to the Nancy Wride story about the Laguna Beach Design Review Board (“But Are Their Own Houses in Order?,” Dec. 9).

We are residents of Laguna Beach who have met with the Design Review Board on certain matters. We wish to commend the board members for their efforts to maintain compliance to guidelines in the review process. We do not criticize their refusal to approve a “white color” when the owners had agreed to comply.

As to the overshadowing of the small home: Certainly, if the owners had enjoyed the right to a small amount of sunshine over many years, that right should not be denied in deference to an obdurate newcomer. In this case, the right to enjoy sunshine is equally important to the right to maintain an ocean view. The absence of available sunshine denigrates property value as much as does the loss of ocean view.

In our particular neighborhood we are grateful to the Design Review Board for its exercise of sanity in controlling the design of a new house on our street. Had the board not intervened in behalf of the residents, travelers along Bluebird Canyon would be viewing a white monolithic structure spilling down the slope all the way to the edge of Bluebird Park.

GLORIA MOUNTEER

Laguna Beach