LAGUNA NIGUEL : Grocery Center Plan Fails to Get OK

The proposed Smith’s Food and Drug Center has failed to gain Planning Commission approval.

The tie vote last week equates to a project refusal, City Atty. Terry Dixon said, adding that it is likely that the Smith’s chain or project developer Birtcher Niguel will appeal the decision to the City Council.

The Planning Commission reached an impasse when two commissioners, Robert Healey and Marc Winer, supported the project and two others, Brian Fisk and Eli Naffah, stood against it.

The fifth commissioner, Connie Axen, abstained, citing her husband’s business ties to the sprawling project planned for the northwest corner of La Paz and Aliso Creek Road. Dixon said backers of the center would have 15 days to file an appeal.

Commissioners were divided on how appropriate the 77,754-square-foot, 24-hour grocery center would be for the high-profile corner. More than 120 residents turned out at a June 8 commission meeting to oppose the project, and City Manager Tim Casey publicly criticized the plan, calling the building design “a big box.”

Many critics, including Casey, said the premium site deserved a better project, such as the earlier Birtcher plan to build an “urban village” on the 7.27-acre site, with a theater, family fitness center, restaurants, retail stores and commercial offices. That plan, approved unanimously Jan. 19 by the City Council, fell through when Edward’s Cinemas backed out of the project, city officials said.