WHAT’S UP

-- Barbara Diamond

WHAT:

ACT V

WHAT’S BEHIND IT:

The city bought the ACT V parking lot in Laguna Canyon from the Irvine

Co., under county jurisdiction and zoned for commercial use. City

officials voted to move the city’s corporation yard there to make way for

the Village Entrance project.

The proposed relocation made strange bedfellows. Village Laguna and

the Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn., as well as practically every other

organization in town, even members of the Village Entrance Task Force,

opposed the move as proposed.

Many wanted to keep that side of the canyon free of development.

Others wanted to use the parcel for peripheral parking, as it is

identified in the Local Coastal Plan for summer parking during the

festival season. Others thought the move would cost too much and leave no

money for the Village Entrance project, which no one opposed.

Even the council didn’t want to move the corporation yard out to ACT

V, they just couldn’t find any place else large enough. Councilwoman Toni

Iseman, who never wavered from her opposition to the proposal, took a lot

of heat. But finally, a majority of the council was persuaded that the

corporation yard was not the best use for the property.

City officials want to annex the property. The application to the

Local Agency Formation Commission for annexation requires the city to

rezone the property from the county’s tourist/commercial to a city zone.

A City Council majority approved on April 16 an amendment to the

zoning map to include ACT V and to designate it as institutional and to

add recreation to the uses in the zone. The unaltered zone allows

public, quasi-public and private institutional facilities, including but

not limited to civic and government buildings; schools; public or private

parks and playgrounds; long-term, low-cost housing; child-care,

preschools and nursery schools; medical or dental buildings; public

utility buildings and structures; philanthropic and charitable

institutions. The addition of recreation opens the zone to tennis courts,

miniature golf, a skateboard park or possibly canoeing if some future

council decided an artificial lake would fit there.

WHAT NOW:

The City Council on Tuesday delayed its final vote on the annexation

and zone change. Iseman wanted more information before voting. City

Manager Ken Frank said the proposed zone was the closest the city could

come to the county zone.

WHAT’S SAID:

“We may need a new zone,” Iseman said. “It’s a lot easier to head it

off at the pass.”

WHAT’S NEXT:

The staff was instructed to come back with more information on deed

restrictions and other information. No date has been for the hearing.