Noguchi garden plan gets no vote

S.J. Cahn

COSTA MESA -- A plan that would have allowed the city to take control

of the California Scenario garden in Town Center was pulled Monday night

before it even came to a vote.

Councilwoman Linda Dixon, who had asked city staff to put the plan

together, said she didn’t feel she had the support to get the change in

city law passed.

Dixon’s proposal would have altered how the city places buildings or

structures on the Local Register of Historic Places. As the law stands

now, the city must get the consent of the property owner, and the

structure in most cases must be more than 50 years old, before adding it

to the list.

Under Dixon’s proposal, cultural significance would have been added as

a criteria for preservation. It also would have removed the need for the

owner’s OK and eliminated the age provision.

The change was only for the proposed 54-acre South Coast Plaza Town

Center project, an area bordered by Bristol Street, Sunflower Avenue,

Avenue of the Arts and the San Diego Freeway.

The fate of the garden, which was designed by Isamu Noguchi in 1982,

has been a months-long source of debate between the city and the garden’s

owner, Commonwealth Partners LLC.

Commonwealth, along with South Coast Plaza Partners and the Orange

County Performing Arts Center, is working to renovate the area into a

pedestrian-oriented cultural arts district. The pieces being developed by

South Coast and the performing arts center have received the city’s OK.

But city officials have balked at approving the Commonwealth area in

order to ensure the maintenance of the garden. An initial agreement under

which Commonwealth would have kept the garden for 25 years fell apart,

with the city asking that the garden be kept for the public “in

perpetuity.”

Commonwealth is set to go back before the City Council on May 21, and

the company’s planning consultant, Phil Schwartze, said he is optimistic

that a deal will be worked out then.

“We have no plan for the Noguchi garden to go away,” Schwartze said,

adding that he is expecting to get back from the city today a proposed

deal that includes the garden being held for the public for 50 years.

Dixon said she is waiting to see what will happen at the meeting and

is not sure if she will reintroduce the proposed change to city law.

“They must at this point realize how important the Noguchi garden is

to not only the Orange County community, but the world,” Dixon said.