Bare Hill, Brooding Residents

The view from Beverly Longfield’s balcony is breathtaking. To the right of her Laguna Beach home, the sparkling Pacific Ocean beckons. But to the left, where there was once a lush, green hillside, there is now just a mound of earth, shaved clean of all vegetation.

The grading was supposed to be finished months ago as part of a plan to build a 5-million-gallon reservoir that would protect against a repeat of the devastating 1993 firestorm that gutted portions of the city. But the project has fallen so far behind that the mountain has been left bare--and barely stable--as the rainy season begins.

Longfield doesn’t believe reassurances that she has nothing to fear when the storms arrive, and she says she already has the damage to prove it. At the height of the work on the hillside, bulldozers passed by so close her house shook, and cracks appeared on her deck and at the bottom of the pool. The water district has agreed to cover the repairs, but that does not ease her heartache.

“This is the best place in the world,” said Longfield, who has lived in Laguna Beach since 1957. “When I saw what they were doing up there, my world caved in.”

Workers have been scrambling to shore up the mountain above Crescent Bay by using 60-foot-deep concrete supports, sandbags, fencing and other erosion-control methods. The work began about three weeks before the California Regional Water Quality Control Board warned the water district it had failed to take the necessary steps to limit hillside erosion, a charge the district denies.

It’s the latest controversy to surround a project that started out as a simple proposal to safeguard the city’s northern neighborhood. It’s since mushroomed into a dispute over the Irvine Co.’s plans to build homes in the area. Critics say the project is spurring the development, and complain that an unusual lack of oversight is to blame for the denuded hillside.

“After the experiences we’ve had with natural disasters, it’s hard to imagine that we could create our own man-made disaster,” fumed Laguna Beach City Councilwoman Toni Iseman. “The concerns of the neighbors are real. If we have a serious rainstorm this winter, the potential for trouble with water runoff and mudslides makes a lot of us nervous.”

Under a complex cost-sharing agreement between the Irvine Co. and the Laguna Beach County Water District, the reservoir is being built on Irvine Co. land, and dirt displaced by the project is being dumped nearby, saving the district disposal fees. In exchange, the district scrapped plans to build a narrow access road in favor of a 40-foot-wide road that curves around what the Irvine Co. envisions as the site of up to 20 homes.

The Irvine Co. is paying 20% of the reservoir cost and 80% of the road cost.

Critics like resident Maura E. Doyle call it a “deal with the devil” that will spur development in an area that was long-enjoyed as open space. But Louis J. Zitnik, vice president of the water district’s board of directors, calls it a pragmatic agreement that ultimately saves the public utility about $5.5 million. He noted that the Irvine Co. has long planned to build there.

“The Irvine Co. would be building houses whether we joined them or not,” Zitnik said. “They have the right to build those houses.”

Irvine Co. spokesman Paul Kranhold said the current project is the work of the water district and has nothing to do with the developer. He said the land set aside for homes above Crescent Bay was part of an agreement approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Under that agreement, the Irvine Co. gave the county 3,500 acres of land to expand Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. In exchange, the Irvine Co. can move forward with plans to build on several coastal areas that it owns, including up to 20 homes on the remaining 40 to 60 acres above Crescent Bay.

The reservoir is scheduled to be finished by the end of the next summer, along with the replanting of the hillside. Because of unexpected geological conditions in the area of the future reservoir, grading will not be finished until spring, said Jim Nestor, the water district’s assistant general manager and district engineer.

Under state law, public water projects such as reservoirs are exempt from local jurisdiction. As a result, no environmental impact report was mandated, no grading permits were required and no county inspections have been needed. The California Coastal Commission also has limited environmental oversight, Nestor said.

Iseman, the Laguna Beach city councilwoman, said the public should have more say over such projects. The mountain’s instability--which has led to the grading delays--would have been discovered before work began if portions of the project went through regular channels, she said.

“Under normal circumstances an [environmental impact report] would have been required for such massive grading, and the geological problems would have been discovered and addressed,” she said.

The water district has assured residents it has taken steps to protect the hill against mudslides and flooding and will be closely monitoring the area throughout the winter.

Chris Bradley, whose family has owned land in Laguna Beach since the 1940s, is among the most vocal and passionate of critics of the project. “The review process has been fundamentally flawed,” he said.

As a young boy, Bradley used to hike in the mountains. But when he learned about the construction and the grading, he avoided going back.

“I wouldn’t go look at it because it hurts too much. It was the path into the wilderness. . . . Now, it’s destroyed.”

Bradley’s mother, Pat Dallas, is dreading the day when homes dot the mountainside where she has hiked for decades with her dogs. During her trips, she’s seen rattlesnakes and even a mountain lion.

“It just doesn’t seem right that they can do this where the land is so precious,” she said.