MAILBAG - March 28, 2008

Council ran amok on Sotheby’s plan

While visiting southern France last year, Bonnie and I came across a tiny town with a downtown of medieval buildings that housed old “” or olde “” shops, apothecaries and the like. Old, stately, lovely beyond words “” a scene out of history. But, right smack dab in the center of this downtown stood a Sotheby’s real estate, and it seemed totally out of place. The other buildings bespoke charm; Sotheby’s bespoke money. It was a shuddering intrusion. I had a fleeting thought: How lucky we are in Laguna not to have a Sotheby’s mucking up our downtown.

Whoops! On March 4 the City Council gave us a Sotheby’s on Forest Avenue, a real estate office of 3,100-plus square feet, twice the size of the house Bonnie and I live in.

As council meetings go, this may not have been the worst in history, but it surely was close. The item “” last on the agenda “” was listed inaccurately. The recommended action on the item read: “The Planning Commission recommended denial of Conditional Use Permit 07-47 at 381 Forest Avenue, Suite 100A.” So far, so good “” but a second sentence set the stage for confusion run amok. It read: “However, at the direction of the City Council, a conditional approval resolution has been drafted for review and consideration.”

The City Council had made no such direction. No approval had been drafted. But City Atty. Phil Kohn believed otherwise. He directed the council to deal only with the parking requirements. Approval, he said, had been granted. He was wrong. He admonished the audience not to spend any time discussing the approval of Sotheby’s to open its office in the Landmark Building. The approval, he said, had already taken place. Again, he was wrong. “So it’s a done deal?” Toni Iseman asked. “Yes,” he said. And, he was wrong a third time.

Permit me to trace the history of this done deal: Last November, real estate broker Bob Chapman, who is also a planning commissioner, applied for a conditional use permit to develop and manage a Sotheby’s real estate office on Forest Avenue. Four years earlier, Coldwell Banker had applied for a permit at the exact same location Sotheby’s now wants. Citing restrictions in the Downtown Specific Plan, the city had denied the Coldwell Banker project. It looked as though Chapman’s application would receive the same treatment. City staff recommended denial to the Planning Commission. With Chapman recusing himself, his four colleagues on the commission unanimously voted to deny the project.

Chapman appealed to the City Council. Members of the public who had spoken in opposition before the Planning Committee were apparently so sure that the council would uphold their denial that none of them showed up for the appeal. The council focused on parking problems. Toni Iseman objected to what she called “mythical parking spaces.” Sometimes the term was “phantom” parking spaces. Nobody came close to asking for a vote to approve the project. Kelly Boyd moved to have staff study the parking requirements and report its findings at the council’s next meeting. The vote to study the parking passed, 3-1.

But when the official appeal was to be heard on March 4, the agenda for the meeting incorrectly stated that approval had already been granted. Talk about mythical parking! Now we have mythical approval. I was there, sitting beside Charlotte Masarik, who had come to read a Village Laguna letter in opposition to Chapman’s appeal. But there would be no appeal, Kohn said. So smooth, so unruffled. So wrong.

I said so. Others said so. And finally it was suggested that the council view the video tape of that February meeting to see what Kelly Boyd had moved. The done deal had begun to unravel. The council, city manager and city attorney all trooped into the city clerk’s office to view the tape on her computer. Ten minutes later, they all trooped back. They came, they saw, they concurred.

“I was wrong,” the city attorney said. Boyd had moved to study parking; he had made no motion to approve.

The clock now read close to midnight. But rather than postpone the appeal to a date and time when minds would not be so befogged, the council decided to hold the appeal right then and there, two hours after the item had been introduced. And quickly it approved the Chapman project for Sotheby’s by a 3-1 vote, Toni Iseman dissenting.

It is not so much that the council has again flipped off the Planning Commission. It has trashed the Downtown Specific Plan. It has thumbed its collective nose at the role of history in Laguna life. And it performed this shameful act before a virtually empty chamber. Pity.

ARNOLD HANO

Laguna Beach

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Road construction damages open space

The city claims that it does not allow developers to use the permanent open space adjacent to new construction. However, the new house being built at 3325 Alta Laguna Boulevard has damaged the adjacent environmentally sensitive permanent open space, including creating a road and driving large earth moving equipment across the open space.

Despite the applicant’s architect claiming before a recent Design Review Board meeting that they did not go into the open space, the DRB was provided a recent aerial photograph clearly showing the extensive damage.

The motion of approval was that, if the open space was damaged, the developer would be responsible to restore it. Is this denying the developer the use of the open space? Hardly.

It is just a method of setting a very low cost for damaging the permanent open space, a price that likely would be most agreeable to this and future developers.

GENE FELDER

Laguna Beach

Laguna gets back its ‘L’

A loud cheer and hats off to the person(s) who restored the “L” on the hill over the holidays.

Dave Gibbs and I had planned to give it a try on Easter Sunday but we are both pleased and impressed with your efforts.

I wonder if one of you would give me a call (I’m in the book) and maybe work out a presentation to the City Council to try to get them to declare the “L” a “Historic Landmark” or some such thing to prevent further vandalism.

It’s a tough call because I think almost every senior class over the years has painted it a different color or done something to it, but usually in the spirit of fun. It would seem that of late, though, destruction seems to be the order of the day.

I’d like to hear from you. When I look at it I’m always reminded that way back in the late ‘30s I was one of the high school kids who helped put the first “L” together.

DENNIS TAYLOR

Laguna Beach

Neighbors asked to spy for water department

Do I understand correctly that Laguna’s Water Department wants to initiate some system for folks to report neighbors that they think may be using too much water; even to the extent of sticking little yellow flags in their neighbor’s yard?

Seems like someone in the Water Department has stolen a page right out of the Gestapo’s handbook; except we get little yellow flags stuck on us instead of the Star of David.

I really think we have enough neighborhood conflicts without this additional nonsense.

I suspect this is just another example of environmental extremism gone wild.

Personally, I would appreciate a phone call or knock on the door from a neighbor alerting me that I had left a hose running or had a leak.

But I don’t need a visit from the city to fine or chastise me.

DAVE CONNELL

Laguna Beach