Lots on Their Minds in Laguna

Possums give birth in Sally Wilde’s bougainvillea vines and owls nest in her pine trees.

This may seem unlikely in Laguna Beach, a shoreline city that better resembles a bustling suburb, except when it happens in the Diamond/Crestview neighborhood, one of the city’s oldest. Here, residents live on winding streets where blind curves dead-end into a rural setting of ocean-view cliffs, wildlife and greenery.

But the neighborhood designed for cabins in the 1920s has been dragged into the litigious 1990s.

In late December, the city settled a 14-year lawsuit with 19 property owners to allow them to build homes under more lax guidelines than planners recently had required.

But by resolving the suit, city officials have created new conflicts with two other sets of property owners in the neighborhood.

Longtime homeowners, who moved in before the strict building standards were enacted, want the restrictions enforced.

And newer property owners who did not sue the city won’t benefit from the outcome of the legal wrangling; they still must abide by the strict restrictions of the 56-page Diamond/Crestview Specific Plan--unless they are extended the same benefits or sue the city. Those landowners want the city to modify the development guidelines, allowing them to build larger homes on their increasingly valuable lots.

“Wow, we got a mess up here,” said Wilde, who has lived on Crestview Drive for 29 years.

Long-time homeowners, including Wilde, who moved in years ago say they are resigned that new development could drive away the wildlife from their yards. But they have far more serious concerns.

“I don’t think it will be safe up there,” said Josh Nolan, who runs an interior design business out of her Crestview Drive home.

Some roads are so narrow that it is dicey for the driver of even a subcompact car to attempt a U-turn without backing into a hill or heading over a cliff. The prospect of building homes terrifies long-time residents, who fear construction vehicles--or any trucks--could block the only access out of the neighborhood.

“How do you get firetrucks up those roads when you’ve got people evacuating at the same time?” asked Dave Schaar, a Diamond Street homeowner.

City officials refute claims that the roads are dangerous.

“Heck, no,” Kenneth C. Frank, the city manager, said. “There are a lot worse streets than that.” City crews paved roads or improved existing streets in the neighborhood in 1994 and 1995.

But officials have said there is little more they can do to improve roads because the houses were built before there were any building standards. In today’s development world, streets are built before houses; not so in Diamond/Crestview.

“The city did not have the luxury of starting from scratch,” City Atty. Philip Kohn said. “They are constrained by what was there.”

Paul Zajfen won an American Institute of Architects award for his design of a house he hopes to build on two lots on Gainsborough Drive. But he said he can’t get city approvals because the house’s size is larger than what’s allowed in the specific plan.

“I’m hopeful that they’re going to reexamine it,” Zajfen said of the plan. “I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t, now that the lawsuit has been settled.”

The court battle began in 1984 when the owners of 38 empty lots claimed that their land was essentially worthless because the city refused to build adequate roads. The homes that existed at the time were accessible only by poorly paved or dirt roads. As a result of the legal action, the city will maintain the streets in the area so the property owners can develop their land. The settlement also allows them to build homes larger than the specific plan guidelines, adopted in 1992.

At a hearing before the City Council in January, property owners like Zajfen who were not plaintiffs in the court case told council members that the suit’s outcome was an incentive for them to sue too.

How modern-day development can proceed in the quaint Diamond/Crestview neighborhood will be decided by the Laguna Beach Planning Commission, which is expected to take up the issue early this summer, Kyle Butterwick, the director of community development, said.

Don Clurman is prepared to wait. Earlier this month, he bought an older house on a half-acre parcel on Diamond Street. He wants to demolish it and build a 3,500-square-foot house; current guidelines allow only 2,650 square feet to be built on his property. He said he too is hopeful that the commission will ease the restrictions so he can move into the bucolic neighborhood.

“Eventually, I’ll get there,” Clurman said.

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Liz Seymour can be reached at (714) 966-7896 or liz.seymour@latimes.com

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Diamond/Crestview Neighborhood

Bounded by: Van Dyke Drive on the north, Catalina Street on the south, Diamond Street on the east, Crestview Drive on the west

Population: About 100

Hot topic: How development will proceed in a rustic neighborhood where lawsuits have stalled housing construction for 14 years