LAGUNA NIGUEL : Commercial Center Decision Postponed

In the face of stiff opposition from neighboring homeowners, the Planning Commission has given itself another six weeks to consider a proposal for a 374,500-square-foot commercial center at La Paz and Aliso Creek roads.

The unanimous vote Tuesday to postpone a decision on the proposed 12.8-acre Birtcher Center came after an emotional public hearing in which several residents from the neighboring Lake Chateau community accused commissioners and other city officials of already making the center a “done deal.”

“Why punish us?” asked resident Bob Estanislau, speaking on behalf of many of his Lake Chateau neighbors. “Why say, ‘Residents of Lake Chateau, you’re going to have to eat it for the big one here. The city needs it.’ We’re a family, we’re a community. But you’re destroying us.”

More than once during the packed hearing in the 75-seat City Council chamber, Planning Commission Chairman Robert Healey stressed to the residents that the proposal was by no means a done deal. “We have a tough decision to make someplace down the road,” he said.

A final decision on a necessary zoning change allowing the project to move forward will ultimately rest with the City Council.

In the planning stages since early 1991, Laguna Niguel-based Birtcher Niguel, which has its offices next door to the site of the proposed center, is seeking to build the project in several phases over the next 18 years.

The first phase would include a six-screen Edwards Cinema complex with 1,800 seats, a 17,000-square-foot Family Fitness Center health club, three restaurants, about 10,000 square feet in retail space and one, four-story office building. Three more four-story office buildings, making up the bulk of the 300,000 square feet of proposed office space, would be built sometime in the future when market conditions allow, said Mitch Brown, vice president of Birtcher Niguel.

City planning staff members have recommended that the Planning Commission approve the project, saying it would help the city achieve such goals as improving sales tax revenue and creating a better balance between jobs and housing.

The project has also been endorsed by the Laguna Niguel Chamber of Commerce and other business interests in town.

“I don’t believe (Birtcher) would put something right in their own back yard that would be anything less than excellent,” said chamber president David Stone.

But residents, who are primarily opposed to the movie theater and health club, say they fear that an increase in traffic and noise, especially late at night when people would be leaving the cinema, will ruin their neighborhoods. About 200 residents, including virtually every homeowner in the 109-home Lake Chateau tract, signed a petition opposing the project.

“Birtcher has requested a zoning change that will permit development of a high-intensity, high-traffic project in the immediate proximity of my community,” Lake Chateau resident Steven Pomerantz said. “I maintain that Birtcher is not entitled to this special dispensation at my expense, at my community’s expense, at other communities’ expense.”

Pomerantz said residents would be willing to support a proposal that included only office space, which he figures would create as many jobs and cause only half the traffic. However, Brown said such a proposal would not be economically viable.