Should Canyon’s Supporters Sleep With the Enemy?

You may not give a hoot whether or not the controversial San Joaquin Hills tollway through Laguna Canyon ever gets built, but surely you can appreciate a good conundrum, so allow me to test you with one.

Pretend you’re on the Laguna Beach City Council, which has consistently and unanimously opposed building the highway through one of the county’s most scenic greenbelts.

On paper, it’s a classic confrontation with both sides getting their backs up because of the stakes involved. To many Laguna residents, nothing is more sacred than preserving the canyon. To Orange County road builders, the corridor is vital.

Now for the conundrum. Lately the news has not been good for the road’s opponents. They lost a recent round in court, and the Transportation Corrider Agency is greasing up the bulldozers to start grading.

If you’re on the council, do you continue to fight the tollway or do you concede that it may be built and begin lobbying for a toned-down design to lessen impact on the canyon? Obviously, if you take the latter course, you cast your lot with the bulldozers.

Steeped in environmentally conscious history, the council has been steadfast, but not everyone in Laguna Beach likes the game of stare-down. Former mayor and canyon supporter Jon Brand stepped forward a couple weeks ago and said he thought the tollway couldn’t be stopped and proposed building part of the road underground to mitigate damage to the canyon.

Now another group has come forward, likewise conceding that the tollway will be built and asking the council to agree to a modified design that, it says, would lessen the environmental and aesthetic damage to the canyon.

Starting at a meeting Monday night at 7:30, the group plans to put heat on the council to give up its no-bargaining stance and, essentially, try to cut a better deal with the Transportation Corridor Agency.

The drive is spearheaded by Jack Camp, an urban planner who has worked on major development projects but who says the tollway design is seriously flawed, and Dan Sasso, a professional illustrator with a degree in architecture.

Camp fears the council is setting the city up for a big fall. “We’re two guys saying: ‘Wait a minute. If you spend all your energies just saying no, one day you’re going to wake up and the damn thing’s going to be built and it’s going to look like that,’ ” Camp said animatedly, pointing to the TCA’s rendering mounted in Sasso’s office. “We’re saying we think there’s a better way to do it.” Camp said TCA officials have told him privately they’d be amenable to possible design changes if Laguna Beach officials signed on and assured them there wouldn’t be undue delays because of the modifications. Camp said he got the TCA and the Irvine Co.’s ear because as an urban planner with the Newport Beach architectural firm of Langdon Wilson, he’s been involved in such high-profile projects as the Irvine Spectrum, the Jamboree Center and Koll Center Newport.

Camp said he considers the current design “bad news,” largely because of the proposed cloverleaf interchange at Laguna Canyon Road. He and Sasso said it will be an eyesore and more environmentally damaging than it needs to be. Camp said his proposal could also be built more cheaply than the existing design.

Signing on with the tollway builders might be too much for the Laguna council to swallow, but at least one member is entertaining the thought.

Councilwoman Martha Collison has consistently joined the unanimous opposition to the toll road. But she’s agreed to go to the Camp-Sasso meeting Monday night at City Hall and hear them out.

“I think the city is going to continue to fight the toll road, but from my perspective, it’s time we look at the reality of the toll road and to have the attitude that if it happens, we should be part of it, part of the design,” Collison said.

Collison concedes that many Laguna Beach residents may favor the road as a traffic-reducer but that they haven’t spoken out. She said she’s now open-minded about submitting an agenda item that would allow groups such as Camp’s to speak to the council.

The city, of course, isn’t the only obstacle to the toll road. A powerful environmental lobby is also carrying the fight and wouldn’t be bound by any City Council action. But Camp said the city’s support of a modified tollway plan could help stave off the disastrous consequences of the current design.

Everyone hears the clock ticking on the San Joaquin. Nerves are fraying on all sides. Camp said he fears that if the city doesn’t take advantage of “a small window” of opportunity now to negotiate with the TCA that the agency won’t have any incentive to do so later. I asked Collison, who’s been on the council since 1984, if the softening of her stance stems from concern about the winner-take-all aspect of the controversy and with the prospect of someone being the big loser.

“Yes, I am concerned,” she said, “and right now I’m afraid it (the loser) is going to be the city.”