LAGUNA NIGUEL : City Rejects Neighbor’s Bid for Welcome Sign

“Welcome to Aliso Viejo” signs will not be permitted in Laguna Niguel, the City Council decided this week.

Although they took great pains not to offend their unincorporated neighbor, council members and city staff said the signs might raise more questions than they answered.

“The main problem with putting the signs in Laguna Niguel would be the confusion factor,” said city Public Works Director Ken Montgomery. “It would create major confusion for motorists or anyone new to Aliso Viejo.”

The Aliso Viejo Community Assn. sought to place a sign at the northwest corner of Aliso Creek Road and Alicia Parkway on a concrete bridge about 300 feet inside the Laguna Niguel city limits.

The planned community of 23,000 has started a monument sign program “to mark the different boundaries so people can start to see where the community starts and ends,” said spokeswoman Wendy Wetzel Harder of Mission Viejo Co., developer for Aliso Viejo. “This corner was a turning point into Aliso Viejo, and it would have been very helpful to anyone driving through the area.”

But the Laguna Niguel council said the request was inconsistent with the city’s own sign program and unnecessary because of another Aliso Viejo marker just west of the bridge.

Council member Patricia C. Bates encouraged the community association to continue working on the proposal. “We do want to be good neighbors,” she said.