LAGUNA NIGUEL : Commission to Weigh Shopping Center Plan

A plan to build the city’s largest shopping center, a 422,203-square-foot complex slated to house both a Mervyn’s department store and a Vons supermarket, will go before the Planning Commission for approval tonight, despite protests from nearby residents who say the project deserves more scrutiny.

If the plan for the Marketplace at Laguna Niguel gets commission approval, Beverly Hills-based Shappell Industries will proceed with construction of the center on 44 acres of its 96-acre site at the southeast corner of Alicia Parkway and Pacific Park Drive.

City Manager Tim Casey said the Shappell proposal--although dwarfed in size by the sprawling malls in Mission Viejo and Laguna Hills--should fill a shopping void in the community and ensure that the site will not go toward industrial purposes.

Shappell “was given a lot of flexibility from the county on use of the land, and we have been pushing as hard as we can to get them to go toward retail,” said Casey, noting that the city’s General Plan targets the property for use as a shopping center.

Casey called the plan the “most significant retail development in the community’s history.” But some area residents said the approval process has moved far too quickly for a project of such scope.

Michael Boorhees, who lives in a second-floor condominium facing the property, said the center would force her to leave the home she moved into just four months ago.

“I’m just flabbergasted, just outraged,” said Boorhees, who said she was unaware of plans for the grassy lot now used as an informal recreation area for the community. “It’s going to destroy (property values) around here--the light pollution, the noise pollution, the massive amounts of people, the massive signage and big parking lot.”

Boorhees asked why an environmental impact study was not prepared for the Shappell proposal, and she criticized the city’s efforts to notify citizens about the looming development.

“No one around here knew about this until this month, and there are still many people who have not been notified,” she said.

State law requires the city to notify property owners within 300 feet of a proposed development and print public notice in a community newspaper, requirements that Casey said were met.

Casey also said that an environmental impact report was unnecessary because many of the key issues had already been covered in research done as part of the city’s General Plan.

Instead, he said, efforts were concentrated on a traffic impact study, which he said indicated no problems associated with the center.

“It’s not like this is a pristine habitat. The land has been scalped a couple of times already,” Casey said. “This all has been moving along so swiftly because this is exactly what the city said it wanted in the General Plan.”

Besides the Mervyn’s and Vons stores, the Marketplace at Laguna Niguel designs include spots for three other “anchor” stores and plans for future development of a gas station and several restaurants and retail stores.