LAGUNA BEACH : Proposed Theater Gets Council’s OK

A fiercely contested plan to build a theater in an abandoned bank building at the south edge of town was approved by the City Council after a three-hour public hearing Tuesday night.

Residents from the Three Arch Bay community, located next to the proposed theater site, pleaded with the council to keep the 250-seat Second Stage away from their homes. But most of the overflow crowd of about 150 favored the project, an offshoot of the Moulton Theatre on Laguna Canyon Road.

Bobbi Cox, chairwoman of the city’s arts commission, told the council the theater would provide “an entrance to the arts” for South Laguna. “Replacing a vacant building with an arts-contributing enterprise is a very noble effort,” she said.

Councilwoman Kathleen Blackburn, a Three Arch Bay resident, voted against the theater. Blackburn said she took part in the vote after concern about possible conflict of interest was relieved when realtors told her the playhouse would have no affect on the value of her home.

The Planning Commission granted a conditional-use permit for the theater in March after attaching a list of conditions. That approval was appealed to the City Council by a Three Arch Bay property owner.

Residents there said the project at 32356 South Coast Highway will increase noise and traffic in the neighborhood. They said their sleep will be disrupted by car doors slamming in the playhouse parking lot and that the additional traffic will make it even more hazardous for children to cross Coast Highway.

“At the end of the day, it comes out to, ‘Why here?’ ” Peter Laszlo asked. “The playhouse needs to be somewhere else.”

But Richard Stein, executive director of the Laguna Playhouse theater group, which operates out of the Moulton Theatre and is promoting this new project, said studies have shown that the Second Stage would have “minimal, if any, impact on the neighborhood.”

Before endorsing the project, the council added conditions to the development as a way of softening the impact for area residents. For example, the theater parking lot must be dotted with canopy trees that Mayor Ann Christoph said will serve as a “psychological buffer” for residents.

Blackburn had lobbied for additional constraints, including restricting the theater’s operating hours.

Members of Laguna Playhouse, officially called Laguna Community Players Inc., have dreamed for a decade of expanding their operations by creating a second theater where more experimental plays could be staged.

The nonprofit group bought the 7,300-square-foot Bank of America building in February after deciding last year that it was the ideal site. The building has been vacant for almost four years.

The Second Stage is expected to open early next year.