Before the newly elected City Council is installed Tuesday, there is one last bit of business for the current body to attend to — and try to put an end to an eight-year dispute.
City officials will meet three hours earlier than the usual 6 p.m. meeting time to resume deliberating on a request to revoke an approved plan for a single-family home in Three Arch Bay.
The council scheduled the 3 p.m. meeting to allow the council a last chance to decide on the request for revocation of the Design Review Board approval and the development permit issued for 29 Bay Drive before Mayor Steven Dicterow is replaced by Kelly Boyd on the dais.
The newly constituted City Council is set to be installed at 6 p.m. by City Clerk Martha Anderson. If the lame duck council cannot bring the tortuous issue to a conclusion, then the new council may have to start all over again.
The Bay Drive project has been in the pipeline for eight years since it was first approved in 1998, a lengthy approval process even by Laguna standards.
Project opponents — dubbed “requesters” for the purposes of the hearing — claim the approval should be rescinded because it was obtained by misrepresentation or fraud, one of the three grounds cited in the municipal code for revocation.
The process is rare in city annals.
“I can count on the fingers of one hand, and not use all the fingers, the revocation hearings in the 20 years I have been here,” City Attorney Philip Kohn said.
The previous hearing on Oct. 17 was continued to Tuesday because city officials said the attorney for the 29 Bay Drive property owners, Charles and Valerie Griswold, had not been provided with the data on which the request for the revocation was based, as instructed by the City Council at its Sept. 5 meeting, when the request was first heard.
The council’s decision to continue the hearing was announced after a brief closed session with Kohn.
Three Arch Bay neighbors have tracked the project since the 5,200-square-foot home was first approved, on July 9, 1998, and it has been consistently questioned by project opponents since then.
Project history
1998
July 13: According to a staff summary of the project’s history, Three Arch Bay property owners Sid and Lesley Danenhauer raised concerns about the height of the project and the calculations in the site plan in a letter to the city. No appeal was filed.
Oct. 13: The California Coastal Commission granted a development permit.
2000
June 22: A two-year extension was approved by the Design Review Board. No appeal was filed.
June 27: A second extension was approved, through July 9, 2003 — the last extension that could be approved under city law. Again, no appeal was filed.
September: The Coastal Commission extended the development permit to Oct. 13, 2003.
2003
June 30: The city issued a building permit, consistent with then-approved plans.
July 9: The permit was appealed by neighbors, who claimed the project was improperly described, that topographic conditions had materially changed since the plan was approved and the approval had been compromised due to erroneous facts and misrepresentations and should be revoked.
September: The project was red-tagged when it was determined that no Coastal Development Permit had been issued by the commission.
Sept. 29: The property owners were notified that the building permit was no longer valid and the design review approval had expired. As a result, the neighbors’ appeal was considered moot.
Oct. 8: The applicants applied for a further extension of the development permit, which was granted, with an expiration date of Oct. 13, 2004.
Oct. 13: Applicants applied for an administrative hearing on the expiration of the city-approved design and building permit. Appeal hearings were continued several times.
2004
June 15: Appeal heard by City Council. The council reinstated the building permit and design review approval, subject to several conditions, including compliance with coastal commission requirements.
June 29: Project neighbors who had filed the appeal in 2003 asked to have their appeal reinstated in light of the council’s decision.
Oct. 5: The coastal commission issued a development permit.
2005
Jan. 27: Revised building plans were submitted to the Design Review Board. Neighbors protested proposed grade changes and alleged misrepresentations during the original approval process. The board limited the hearing to consideration of the requested changes required to fulfill the coastal development permit conditions and gave the project a conditional approval.
Feb. 10: Neighbors appealed.
March 1: The council granted the appeal and remanded the project to the board for further review. The purpose of the remand was the review of the modified height guideline encroachment and the evaluation of modifications impacted the modifications on the height of the project and to request mitigation of the impacts. The project was re-staked to reflect the actual guideline from the modified grade.
Also on March 1: The city attorney notified the applicants by mail that the council action should not be construed as a revocation of previous approvals, but revocation proceedings in the future were not precluded.
2006
Sept. 5: The staff presented the appellants’ request for revocation, based on the applicants’ failure to revise, resubmit and re-stake the project. The council voted 3-2 to conduct a hearing on the merits of the request, Mayor Steven Dicterow and Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider opposed.
Oct. 17: Council heard arguments for and against revocation. Neighbors said inaccurate information submitted on behalf of the applicants was intentional.
The applicants’ attorney said explanations could be made for all the changes, some due to a simple mistake and the property owners should not be penalized for it. He said he was unable to adequately rebut data presented by the requesters because they had not supplied the information to him as instructed by the council at the Sept. 5 meeting.
The three-hour hearing was continued, deemed necessary by council to allow a review by the Gratz of data introduced by appellants.
Oct. 20: The deadline for requestors to deliver to Development Director John Montgomery all data and exhibits related to the topographical map exhibited at the meeting.
Montgomery will make the information available to attorney Gene Gratz, who represents the property owners of 29 Bay Drive, and by extension their architect Jim Conrad, who project opponents alleged knowingly misrepresented data.
Nov. 15: Deadline for Gratz to supply his responses to the data submitted by requesters.
