Council tackles design issues

Design review task force report, Village Entrance project highlight daylong meeting Saturday.The City Council held a marathon meeting Saturday.

On the council’s daylong agenda: a roundtable discussion of the design review task force report involving the task force, the design review board and the planning commission; a city bus tour and luncheon meeting with the design review board; a meeting with the planning commission; and a presentation of the revisions and timeline for the Village Entrance project, including both interim and permanent proposals.

“I thought we got a lot accomplished,” Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider said.

“We got all the planning and review bodies on the same page as it relates to community values and council priorities.”

TASK FORCE REPORT

Meetings began at 9 a.m. in the council chambers when four of the five council members, four members of the board, the task force and the commission discussed the report. About 50 residents and business people attended.

The report was designed to address “contentiousness” in the design review process.

The report included three “lacks” that the task force contends makes the review process more contentious: lack of predictability; lack of a fully functional decision-making process that fosters neighborhood cooperation as well as great architecture; and lack of resources commensurate with the demands of the process.

“We are dealing with people’s homes, dealing with people’s dreams,” design review board chair Suzanne Morrisson said. “It takes a certain amount of time to accept reality. People should be able to build their dream homes, and they don’t like being told they can’t build it.”

On the other hand, Morrison said that the board should not always be ruled by the rules.

“We have to be able to say, yes, [the project] meets it all, but it is not best for Laguna Beach,” Morrison said. “We have to be flexible. When people come in, we have to be able to say, it follows the rules, but it is wrong.”

Task force member Gene Gratz, an attorney, said the board must be able to make the legally required findings for its decisions.

“To say, ‘I don’t care what the rules are, I am going to reject it anyway,’ is perhaps not appropriate [for a government representative],” Gratz said.

Board members, who hear an average of 14 projects a week, differ on how to improve the process, but all defend it as necessary.

They do agree on off-loading mandatory concept reviews to staff, perhaps with the slack taken up by a staff project manager.

Mayor Pearson-Schneider distributed a draft disclosure statement that she prepared for council consideration.

The statement, if approved, would be included in every transfer of title of real estate within the city.

It would make any potential buyer aware that the design review board has discretion in the regulation of residential property development and may not allow the maximums in the applicable zoning standards.

The council is scheduled to take action on the report at the Jan. 10 meeting. Public input is invited.

For more information about the task force report, visit www.lagunabeachcity.net.

VILLAGE ENTRANCE

The council returned to the Council Chambers at 2:30 p.m. to hear Studio One-Eleven’s revisions to the proposal that won the city’s design contest for the Village Entrance.

Studio One-Eleven spokesman Alan Pullman said the refined version increased the number of vehicles that could be parked on the site and includes all required functions without compromising aesthetics.

“The [parking structure] design is related to City Hall and other buildings around town,” Pullman said.

A series of arches stretching in front of the garage brings to mind the city parking structure on Glenneyre Street.

The park component of the project is intended as a pedestrian link from City Hall to the Festival of Arts and other cultural institutionsThe creek walk will be of a permeable material and landscaped, Pullman said.

“It has to be comfortable,” Iseman said.

The plan is designed to provide complete circulation by vehicle or on foot with numerous access and exit points.

A transit depot will serve only city buses and trams. A pedestrian bridge across Broadway was included in the preliminary plan for cost estimates only.

City officials also are casting about for funding mechanisms for the permanent Village Entrance project.

The council voted 4-0, with Mayor Pro Tem Steven Dicterow absent, to schedule the selection of a consultant for the Village Entrance environmental impact report for Tuesday’s meeting.

“I am very pleased that we were able to take the Village Entrance a step further,” Mayor Pearson-Schneider said.