Endangered art park

Automobile aficionados may think cars are works of art, but that’s not what Dawson Cole Fine Art Gallery has in mind for its parking lot.

The Planning Commission is scheduled to hear on Wednesday an application for a temporary-use permit to hold events in the parking lot/sculpture garden across the alley from the back of the gallery.

The lot — located behind the Glenneyre Street gallery off of an alley — contains large water features and stone sculptures by Richard MacDonald and is gated at the Second Street entrance.

“For sometime now, the city of Laguna Beach has been raising objections to the way we use our sculpture garden,” said gallery director Richard MacDonald Jr.

“The city has requested that we seek a new temporary-use permit, without which our use of the garden for anything other than parking will be curtailed.

“My concern is that I don’t want this to be all or nothing at all. I think this risks having events at all, but we are doing it according to city procedures.”

One stumbling block is that the use of the lot to display sizable sculpture has made public parking a virtual impossibility. Public parking is required for a new temporary-use permit, as well as the fulfilling the long-standing parking requirement in the original conditional-use permit.

The permit was granted a former tenant of the property in 1990, seven years before the Richard MacDonald gallery opened in 1997. The CUP was amended in 1991, but the parking requirement remained unchanged.

If public parking spaces are rendered unusable, alternative spaces must be provided, city senior Planner Scott Drapkin said.

The California Coastal Commission forbids a net loss of public parking in the downtown, regardless of local opinion on the merits of a project that causes the loss.

Public parking for 20 vehicles was a requirement in the conditional-use permit, Drapkin said. Eight of the required spaces are leased off-site.

Drapkin is evaluating the gallery’s application.

“They are proposing to hold two outdoor private parties a month,” Drapkin said. “There would be three categories: gallery events, corporate events and charity events.”

MacDonald said the parking lot has been used for events and art exhibits for the past eight years.

“Since our opening in 1997, the garden has been a venue for free art exhibitions that have revived the founding spirit of this artists’ community, bringing inspiration and beauty to local residents,” MacDonald said. “We have regularly donated the space for charitable fundraising efforts for numerous worthy and diverse causes, including Juvenile Diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease, Save the Sea Lions, SchoolPower, Friendship Shelter and the Jane Goodall Foundation, to name only a few.”

Drapkin said he has not yet determined whether to recommend approval or denial of the application, or what conditions to impose, if the permit is approved. Commissioners may also add conditions.

“Conditions could include regulation of hours of operation, sound systems, lighting and bonds or guarantees for the cleanup,” Drapkin said.

Planning commissioner Norm Grossman is concerned about the fees MacDonald said are sometimes charged for the use of the lot for events.

“That turns the gallery into an event venue and we have to evaluate the impacts differently,” Grossman said.

The city code requires that approved activities be no more “obnoxious” than other uses permitted in the same zone.

Complaints have been made to the city about loud music and traffic snarls when events are hosted at the gallery.

The Downtown Neighborhood Assn. submitted a letter to the commission opposing the temporary-use permit because of the impacts of previously held events that the association claims adversely affected the area.

“They play loud music just a block over at the Brewery,” MacDonald said. “And we don’t generate as much traffic as Third Street. Sometimes at corporate events, we have only 30 people, and they are shuttled here from Montage and the locals don’t even know they are here.

“I think there are ways to mitigate the concerns of the neighbors.”

MacDonald said locals have expressed overwhelming appreciation of the Sculpture Garden.

“Now we need the city to hear those voices,” MacDonald said. “We encourage anyone who believes the Dawson Cole Fine Art Sculpture Garden is an asset to the Laguna Beach community to sign our online petition at www.dawsoncolefineart.com/petition and, if possible, attend the hearing to make your feelings known to the Planning Commission.”

A reception will be held at 6 p.m. before the hearing at the gallery to discuss the issue and to thank people for support, MacDonald said.

Commission hearings begin at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall, 505 Forest Ave. For more information, call the Zoning Department at (949) 497-0329.