A big house, but no big solution

Karen Schwager

I attended the Design Review Board hearing last Thursday concerning

the proposed huge house at 3355 Alta Laguna Blvd. next to the public

view park. I was very curious to learn what rationale the owner could

conceivably have for his un-neighborly intention to obstruct a good

part of the public view by plunking down his huge (6,000-square-foot)

house right in front of a public view park.

Well, I sure did not learn anything useful from the owner at this

hearing. In fact, it felt like the owner, instead of advancing a

reason for refusing even the smallest change to make his design more

sensitive to this extraordinary location, spent time describing

himself as a victim of the long delays he was forced to experience in

building his house. To understand fully this strange mind-set, one

needs to understand that this owner had, himself, chosen to wait more

than 15 months in returning to the Design Review Board after the

board’s concept review hearing of October of 2003. Add to this that

he was returning with his original unaltered design despite the

numerous changes requested by the board and the public at the concept

review. I would guess that there might be good reasons why an owner

would wait 15 months to resubmit plans to the review board, such as

if he were making extensive modification to the plans or working

cooperatively with his neighbors, but to wait 15 months to resubmit

the same plans hardly allows one to complain about being the “victim”

of the delay.

Although the owner did not have any answers for the public

concerns for his project, he did have time to complain about his

mounting legal bills on this project. He did not seem to be able to

comprehend fully that if one chooses to sue the city, as he has, even

before you get turned down by the review board, you just might be

padding your own attorney fees unnecessarily. That this owner had

sued the city for the nonbinding Concept Review guidance requested by

him is a strange enough idea to begin with, but to then turn this

around and complain about his legal costs as a result moves beyond

strange.

I went to this hearing hoping that this owner, new to our town,

would be listening to his neighbors. Regretfully, he did not appear

to be.

* KAREN SCHWAGER is Laguna Beach resident.