Mailbag: Plans to change beach overlooks criticized

It is being proposed that four of the public beach access overlooks be pulled back to the street, minimized, and the current beach views will be diminished.

The benches, pathways, overlooks and viewing decks to Mountain Road and Thalia, Oak, and Agate streets are being redesigned as a single project that will be heard by the Design Review Board at 6 p.m. on Jan. 22 at City Hall.

There will be no public notification for this meeting and most of Laguna is unaware of the proposed redesigns.

There is a link to the proposal on the city’s website, lagunabeachcity.net. Please study the drawings carefully. The proposed design, in pale yellow, is shown as an overlay to the existing conditions, drawn in faint gray.

Diminishing and removing the existing benches, pathways, overlooks, and viewing decks should be of concern to all who frequent the beach.

At Thalia Street, the double-tiered deck, benches and flat pathways are to be removed. At Mountain Drive, the bench and the lower overlook are to be removed. At Agate Street, the bench is to be removed and the new viewing area will be pulled back to the street, put in a corner, oriented to only face south, and will only accommodate five to six people.

Cold, hard concrete “seat walls” and “seat buttons,” without seat backs, do not enhance anyone’s enjoyment of Laguna Beach’s assets.

Also, the lower overlook landings and their coveted viewpoints at Mountain and Agate will be butchered or completely removed, creating choke points on tight corners. Anyone with a surfboard, stand-up paddleboard, kayak, beach gear, or even emergency life-saving equipment will find it difficult to navigate these tighter corners.

As a beach-access enhancement project, this does not enhance the public usage of the existing access.

If you share these concerns, please speak up before the Jan. 22 vote or come to the meeting. Contact the city’s liaison, Tom Sandefur, at tsandefur@lagunabeachcity.net or contact our Design Review Board members.

Please spread the word. Public input can make a difference. Our beaches are the gateway to our city and the keystone to our lifestyle.

Peter Mann

Laguna Beach

*

Focus on education, not skating

Recently I saw a placard which asserted “Laguna Beach needs a skateboard park.” Laguna Beach does not need a skateboard park.

What Laguna Beach needs is to continue its excellence in education for the gifted, the average and the challenged. My college, City College of New York, doesn’t have a football team, but, it boasts 10 Nobel laureates (I’m not one of them).

Which should we choose?

Thomas Dugan

Laguna Beach