Preservation versus profit, again The Hobo...

Preservation

versus profit, again

The Hobo & Aliso Canyons Neighborhood Assn. appreciates the

opportunity to respond to your question: “Do you think the Driftwood

developers should have to seek a variance?” (Coastline Pilot, Aug. 2)

The city of Laguna Beach has required indirect access variances when

safety provisions are proposed to be met by using an easement for

secondary emergency access for many, many years -- it is both proper

and consistent with established city policy. We appreciate the city

staff’s and Planning Commission’s consistent, unwavering

interpretation of our city’s policy. Why should out-of-town

developers and their lawyers be able to rewrite “our” city’s

established policies simply for special interest and profit?

This proposed subdivision is still all about “preservation versus

profit.” Todd Skenderian states in your most recent article that,

“Seven lots and the project is dead.” This echoes Morris Skenderian’s

last interview statement, “The project is not economically viable

with just seven lots.”

Obviously, eliminating the need for a variance would allow

Highpointe Communities more development and more profit. This would

establish a dangerous precedent for all future development and send a

signal to developers that Laguna Beach policies and codes can be

undermined.

Please allow us to reiterate the neighborhood association’s

stance, as well as that of the Sierra Club: This property should be

preserved as open space in perpetuity. It has faced decades of

illegal grading, denuding and chemical defoliation and has earned the

right to be restored to its original state and be preserved. A 15-lot

subdivision is not appropriate, and city staff’s recommendation to

reduce this to a seven-lot development should be the developer’s

first clue that it is simply too dense of a project for such

sensitive habitat and unstable terrain.

And stay tuned for more on this proposed development ...

Highpointe Communities also wants to delete a significant watercourse

from our city’s maps in an attempt to eliminate the need for yet

another variance.

Preservation versus profit. Open space versus more congestion.

What’s it going to be Laguna Beach?

PENNY ELIA

Laguna Beach

Hobo & Aliso Canyons Neighborhood Assn.,

President Save Hobo & Aliso Ridge Task Force,

Sierra Club Task Force Leader

Driftwood would cause unfair burden

Just say no!

The attorney for Barnise and the Cases, Michael J. Matlaf, wrote

to the planning staff requesting that the secondary access road for

the proposed 15 lots for Driftwood Estates be blocked from use. In

the hopefully unlikely event that the variances are granted, then the

secondary access for the additional eight homes would be necessary.

The concern of Matlaf for the stability of the slopes on either side

of the new proposed road is certainly valid.

However, the reason for the limit of seven additional homes at the

end of Driftwood for development is to limit the amount of traffic

down such a narrow street. The residents of Driftwood Drive would be

unduly burdened and stressed to take all the heavy construction

traffic and the future traffic of the development. This would be

outrageously unfair to the residents of Driftwood Drive. It should

not be considered an option any more than directing all the

additional traffic to the new road exclusively.

All these concerns only give support to the planning staff’s prior

reasoning to refuse to grant the variances to develop the 18 estate

homes. What applies to the 18 should apply to the 15 homes.

Just say no!

ALEX SHELTON

Laguna Beach

Get behind the Great Park

Every time you pick up the L.A. Times there’s an article knocking

Irvine and the Great Park idea. It’s not hard to figure out that the

Times and others are still trying to get an airport in our backyard.

Laguna Beach should get behind Irvine now.

A fund-raiser tied to art and held at the Festival grounds would

fit the bill. We could ask local artists to help out with some

paintings of the closed El Toro base and use that artwork as a

catalyst to bring locals in for an auction. Maybe we could impose

upon Irvine Mayor Larry Agran to give us his view of what Irvine and

the U.S. Navy have in mind. That, in itself, would be worth the price

of admission.

Other south county cities could follow suit and raise private, not

public, money in support of the Great Park idea. After all, this is

still to our best interest and not only an Irvine project. If we can

raise enough money to help with the Great Park, then a section of

that park should be set aside for Laguna Art, one of the “jewels” in

the Great Park that Mayor Agran has been speaking about.

How to get something like this rolling? I have no idea. Possibly

the city could start the machinery in motion and then we local

citizens could take over. Let’s support Irvine now.

JOE GIORDANO

Laguna Beach

End of waiver good for Aliso Beach

I am the former chief engineer of the Orange County Sanitation

District and personally directed the preparation and filing of the

301(h) waiver for the district in September of 1979. The Board of

Directors of the district felt at the time that this was the best

course of action because of the very aggressive capital improvement

program that was being implemented. This capital works program

included 50 mgd of secondary treatment facilities at the Fountain

Valley plant and 75 mgd of secondary treatment facilities at the

Huntington Beach plant.

Major trunk sewers were also being constructed extending from the

Huntington Beach plant northerly to serve the cities of Fountain

Valley, Stanton, Westminster, Buena Park, Garden Grove and La Palma.

The Santa Ana Regional Interceptor was also being constructed along

the Santa Ana River from the Fountain Valley plant to the Orange

County boundary near Prado Dam. This major interceptor sewer not only

served several cities in Orange County, but provided a conveyance

system for the removal of contaminants and toxins from the Upper

Basin (Riverside and San Bernardino counties).

I believe that the Board of Directors’ recent action not to

request an extension of the waiver was prudent and necessary

considering the general public demand for full secondary treatment

for all waste waters being discharged to the ocean. However, it is my

opinion that with the expenditures of several millions of dollars and

increased property taxes, the beach closures and bacteria

contamination along the shoreline will not cease.

When the Corps of Engineers paved the bottom of the Santa Ana

River with concrete from the ocean to Weir Canyon, we lost over 225

acres of wetlands in the bottom of the river. The earthen soil

bottom, along with the vegetative growth, help reduce the

contaminants from the local storm water runoff before it reached the

ocean waters. The South Orange County Wastewater Authority treats all

the wastewater to secondary treatment level and discharges the

treated waste one-mile off shore from Aliso Beach. Even with

secondary treatment, the beach at Aliso has been quarantine and

posted on several occasions.

It is my opinion that the recent influx of beach pollution

resulting in unhealthy conditions and beach closures is the result of

neglect by many sewer agencies to properly maintain their sewers

resulting in sewer overflows and cities failing to implement a strong

storm drain, environmental anti-dumping policy with adequate

enforcement. All the contaminants and toxicant from sewer overflows,

the animal feces, pesticides, construction run-off, etc. that enter

our storm drain systems will continue to pollute our waterways and

beaches unless there is enough pressure brought on the various city

councils to adopt and enforce anti-pollution programs for out storm

drains.

The much-hailed victory will not provide clean and safe beaches.

RAY E. LEWIS, P.E., DEE

Laguna Beach

A little chalk walk

Since there wasn’t anyone arrested at the anti-abortion protest

for defacing public property with their chalk slogans on the sidewalk

on Ocean Avenue, I’m thinking that I just might mosey on down there

with my five-gallon can of chalk and paint a few of my own. Like, “No

Iraqi War,” “Down with the Pope,” “No Foothill South,” “Bushwack

Bush,” “No Nukes,” “Save the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve” and “Abortion

is a Woman’s Right” for starters.

ANDY WING

Laguna Beach