LAGUNA BEACH : Lenney to Push for Parklands Before Council Term Ends

With her leadership days dwindling, City Councilwoman Lida Lenney, for eight years a champion of environmental preservation, is proposing that about 445 acres of city-owned open space be deemed parkland to lessen the chance that it will be developed.

Lenney will recommend Tuesday that the city take the initial steps to amend planning documents so “our open-space resources would be protected in perpetuity,” a memo to her colleagues said.

“At this point, there are no assurances that those properties will remain as natural open space forever,” the memo said.

While the city has been fiercely protective of the environment for most of the past two decades, the council’s majority voting block--Lenney, Robert F. Gentry and Ann Christoph--will all step down Dec. 6. Lenney and Gentry did not run for reelection and Christoph was defeated at the polls Tuesday.

Some residents have feared that the newly elected, more conservative leadership, would be less diligent about protecting the environment.

But new council members have said that they too intend to preserve undeveloped areas.

“You’re not going to see the selling off of open space,” top vote-getter Steve Dicterow, said after his election. “You’re not going to see development.”

The proposed parkland includes 11 acres known as the “Phillips property,” near the Top of the World community; about 325 acres in Laguna Canyon north of El Toro Road, which includes the largest of three natural lakes in the area; and the “Brooks parcel,” a ridgeline of about 110 acres between Top of the World and the Arch Beach Heights neighborhood.

“I can’t imagine future city councils chopping it up for development,” City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said Friday. “Lida just wants to make it as airtight as possible.”