Village Entrance plan up for comment

Tuesday was the first opportunity for folks to get a gander at the draft environmental impact report prepared for the long-awaited Village Entrance project.

The public review period will continue through March 2, but a snappy response will be needed for comments to be included in the record at the Planning Commission hearing on Jan. 24.

“It is safe to say that the Planning Commission might decide to hold a second hearing at the end of the comment period when the public has had a sufficient amount of time to study the document in detail,” Planning Commissioner Norm Grossman said.

Copies of the report are available for review at the front counter and the City Clerk’s Office in City Hall, 505 Forest Ave., and the Laguna Beach Library, 363 Glenneyre St.

Community Development Director John Montgomery said the report is also posted on the city’s Website, www.lagunabeachcity.net. Look for “Village Entrance EIR.” Digital copies of the report may be purchased for $25 through the city’s Community Development Department.

The report analyzes the potential impacts from the renovation of the sewer digester tower for use as a visitor’s center, planting of a sliver of park along Forest Avenue, Broadway and Laguna Canyon Road, and the construction of a parking structure. Four alternatives are included for the parking structure: no project, three levels with 429 spaces, four levels with 593 spaces and six levels with 667 spaces.

The report states the reasons why the Laguna Art Museum’s alternative proposal for a museum-and-townhome complex with parking on the site was eliminated from the running: The project would have added too many new features to the area and potentially create additional environmental impacts that the original project would not.

Areas of concern listed at the scoping session last year for the project included aesthetics, geology and soil at the proposed site, cultural resources, hazards and hazardous materials (which might have seeped into the ground from vehicles and equipment used in the yard), hydrology, land use and planning, noise, utilities and the effect the project would have on air and water quality, traffic and transportation.

Of the concerns, the summary states that the only significant impact will be on traffic. Everything else is listed as less than significant.

Comments may be submitted by facsimile, letter, e-mail or at the public hearing.

“I would like to see the commission hearing conducted more like a workshop where no decision is made and the public could ask questions and get answers before making a formal comment,” Laguna Canyon Foundation President Carolyn Wood said.

All substantive comments will be addressed in the final report.

The draft document — which runs to 174 pages with a 318-page appendix, both of which are double-sided — was written by professionals and may not be easily understood by theaverage person.

Ocean Laguna, the Surfrider Foundation and the Laguna Beach branch of the League of Women Voters are teaming up to host a workshop to educate the public on how to read an environmental report. The workshop is tentatively set for Jan. 29 in the City Council Chamber.

“I know I need that kind of help,” said league member Linda Brown, who is helping to organize the workshop. “We want to take a general look at the whole process. It will not be a critique of the Village Entrance project, but we might pull out parts of the DEIR as examples.”

The so-called Village Entrance served the city for decades as its corporation or maintenance yard. For about the last 30 years, city officials and community activists debated the merits of a variety of plans to gussy up the area.

Plans ranged from landscaping simply to disguise the mechanics of maintaining the city’s equipment and property to the notorious “Hanging Gardens” hotel project.

But the plans were pie in the sky until an agreement was proposed (and later refined) by the unexpected and effective alliance of council members Toni Iseman and Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider, approved by the council and subsequently by the California Coastal Commission.

A TRUCE CALLED

An initial 12-point compromise agreement was hammered out by Iseman and Pearson, in a series of meetings, first one-on-one and then with the facilitator and Frank.

The agreement was announced at a workshop in January 2005, bringing opponents and supporters of the relocation closer to ending the civil war that had raged for the 10 years following the city’s purchase of the ACT V parcel from the county.

Some of the key points in the compromise included a reduced footprint of the proposed maintenance yard at ACT V, landscaping to obscure the yard, easily recognizable public parking and a shuttle stop, a sizable parking garage at the Village Entrance and a park.

Iseman and Pearson-Schneider each gave up more than they wanted to make the compromise work, and they each took some hits for it from their supporters.

Pearson-Schneider stepped back from her long-held position, supported by a council majority that everything in the maintenance yard had to go to Act V, to clear the way for the Village Entrance as envisioned 10 years earlier by a task force on which she sat as a planning commissioner.

Longtime Laguna Greenbelt Inc. and Laguna Canyon Conservancy member Iseman ran for council for the first time as an opponent of any development on the westward side of Laguna Canyon Road, never wavering from that position, and a supporter of peripheral parking outside the downtown basin.

In the workshop, Pearson-Schneider reduced her parking requirement of 650 vehicles at the Village Entrance to 575. The Village Entrance Task Force had only asked for about 400 spaces. Iseman started with a commitment to 400 parking spaces at Act V and conceded almost half the number.

“Elizabeth said if she gave up spaces, I had to give up spaces,” Iseman said.

Additional suggestions came from the public and a six-member public panel, three each chosen by Iseman and Pearson-Schneider to represent groups in town that had voiced opinions on the maintenance yard location.

Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman, also a member of the Village Entrance Task Force as a planning commissioner, accepted most of the proposals with the proviso that the entwined projects would have a champion at the California Coastal Commission.

“If we get a deal, I will strangle people to get it approved,” vowed Iseman, then a member of the commission.

The council unanimously agreed on the compromises.

Funding for the maintenance yard relocation came from the sale of city-owned lots above the Festival of Arts Grounds. Funding for the Village Entrance project is yet to be announced, although both Iseman and Pearson-Schneider have mentioned the B-word — a bond.

However, funding, by floating a bond or otherwise, hinges on the project selected, and that starts with the public’s review, understanding and comments on the draft environmental impact report.

For more information, call the Community Development Department at (949) 497-0713.