MISSION VIEJO : City, Laguna Hills Discuss Lawsuits

Even though Mission Viejo filed its second lawsuit against neighboring Laguna Hills last week, both sent representatives to a closed-door meeting this week to iron out their differences.

No specific progress on either lawsuit was made, but Mission Viejo Mayor Robert D. Breton said he was encouraged by the tone of the 3 1/2-hour-long meeting, which was held Monday in a South Orange County Chamber of Commerce conference room.

“We did clear up some misunderstandings and misperceptions about each other,” Breton said. “For a long time we’ve come to consider Laguna Hills as being an enemy rather than a city we’ve got a lot in common with. We should be treating each other like neighboring cities on friendly terms.”

Last week, the Mission Viejo council voted to file a lawsuit against Laguna Hills over that city’s approval of an expansion of the Laguna Hills Mall. Last spring, Mission Viejo sued Laguna Hills for allegedly obstructing a redevelopment project that borders a Laguna Hills residential neighborhood.

Laguna Hills Councilman Randal J. Bressette was not as enthusiastic as Breton over the outcome of Monday’s meeting, but he did say the joint session was a “giant step forward.”

“At least we’ve gotten together and discussed our differences,” he said. “I hope the dialogue continues.”

The lawsuit over the mall expansion was filed because Mission Viejo officials feel that traffic problems created by a larger mall were not being addressed by Laguna Hills. Mission Viejo officials are particularly concerned about the impact the expansion would have on heavily traveled Muirlands Boulevard at the intersections of Los Alisos Boulevard and Alicia Parkway.

Mission Viejo wants Laguna Hills to commit more money to improve those intersections to compensate for extra traffic created by the expansion.

However, Breton said that the mall lawsuit was more of a formality taken to protect Mission Viejo’s legal interests.

“We believe that Laguna Hills wants these intersections to be improved so that people in Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita want to come to the mall,” he said. “We were required to file the suit within 30 days of their decision (on the expansion) or we’d lose the right to sue in case they didn’t agree to pay their fair share” of the street improvements.

Laguna Hills officials say they have allowed for increased traffic by requiring that $2 million in road improvements be made near the mall as a condition of the expansion.

The suit was the second legal action brought against Laguna Hills by Mission Viejo this year. The two cities have disagreed over how a 49-acre parcel near Oso Parkway and Interstate 5 should be developed.

Mission Viejo wants to see an auto mall built on the parcel, while Laguna Hills is concerned about how the development will affect an adjoining residential neighborhood. When Laguna Hills appealed one phase of the project that is near railroad tracks to the state Public Utilities Commission, Mission Viejo joined the developer, the Mission Viejo Co., in a suit claiming that Laguna Hills was unfairly trying to stall construction.

But Monday’s meeting helped clear the air, Breton said.

“We assumed they wanted to block all development there,” he said. “They assumed we were going to let anything in there without mitigating traffic” impact on the surrounding neighborhood. “But we really laid everything out on the table and, I think, began to build trust.”