Corporation yard to move to ACT V

The City Council on Tuesday reversed a reversal of a proposal to

move the corporation yard to the ACT V parking lot.

In other words, the council voted to relocate the yard to make way

for a Village Entrance project, a plan for which the ACT V had been

purchased in 1996 and subsequently abandoned in 2000. The vote was

3-2. Mayor Toni Iseman and Councilman Wayne Baglin were opposed.

“The corporation yard is a collection of 50-year-old tin shacks,”

said Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman, who has never wavered from her

support of moving the yard since it was first suggested by the

Village Entrance Task Force on which she served during her term on

the Planning Commission. “We have to do something with that area.”

Iseman, who sided with environmental groups that oppose

development on the west or north side of Laguna Canyon, made a

desperate plea to swing Councilman Steven Dicterow into her camp,

based on his support for peripheral parking. However, Dicterow said

the ACT V lot was not peripheral enough for him.

“I don’ t consider what we are talking about at ACT V as

development,” Dicterow said.

Representatives of Laguna Greenbelt Inc., Village Laguna and

Temple Hills Community Assn. and some residents disputed Dicterow’s

view.

Resident Ron Chilcote spoke against the relocation on his own

behalf and then read a letter from Laguna Greenbelt Inc. President

Elisabeth Brown: “Not only will the proposed development intrude upon

the Laguna greenbelt and forever destroy a beautiful canyon, it would

draw deeply from taxpayer-generated funds that would be more

beneficial for other projects, including the acquisition of greenbelt

open space within the city.”

The Village Entrance Task Force recommended moving the yard, but

did not specify a location.

“We studied this for a year and determined there was no other

location except ACT V,” Pearson said.

Some functions will remain at the present site. It was deemed too

expensive to move a sewer pump that ships North Laguna sewage to the

treatment plant at Aliso Creek. Police and emergency vehicles also

will stay, but the wash rack to clean them would go. Records that are

stored in bins by city departments could be moved, but that might

prove inconvenient.

The estimated costs of corporation yard relocation and

construction have not been updated. There also is no cost estimate

for the construction of the Village Entrance and no funds for it,

Kinsman said.

Removing the corporation yard would not materially change the look

of the award-winning design, Pullman said, requiring only the

substitution of parking for the corporation yard originally included

on the ground floor of the proposed parking structure.

The revised plan would provide more parking on the site, but would

eliminate about half of the parking at ACT V, which tourists are

encouraged to use to reduce downtown congestion. The net loss would

be 75 to 110 spaces depending on who is counting.

“We will spend $3 million to lose 110 spaces,” Councilman Baglin

said. “That doesn’t seem logical from an economic view and it doesn’t

help parking. We should concentrate that money on the Village

Entrance.”

The council majority on Tuesday authorized City Manager Ken Frank

to contact Orange County to see if approvals of the ACT V project are

still valid. Council members agreed to postpone discussion on

annexation of the property, also on Tuesday’s agenda, until Frank

reported back on the status of the county approvals.

-- Barbara Diamond