City approves spending toward effort to buy South Laguna Community Garden Park

The Laguna Beach City Council this week approved spending funds on a land appraisal and environmental assessment of the South Laguna Community Garden Park as part of a ramped-up effort to buy the land.

The properties at 31610 and 31616 S. Coast Hwy. are owned by Ahmed Altuwaijri, who lives in Saudi Arabia. City officials and garden organizers say they have been unable to contact him despite four years of letters, faxes, emails and phone calls.

In recent years, garden users have feared the facility may be uprooted should the owner decide to do something else with the land. They began raising money in 2012 to acquire it.

In 2014, the council earmarked $251,252 toward buying the properties, which had been appraised at about $1 million two years earlier. The council later upped its amount to $500,352, though those funds were set to expire in 2019 if not spent.

On Tuesday, in addition to a new appraisal and environmental review, the council extended the earmark’s expiration date to 2021, with the ultimate goal of making an offer to the owner.

Volunteers with the South Laguna Civic Assn. help maintain the park, which is frequently used for lectures and other events. It contains about 50 gardening plots.

Councilman Steve Dicterow urged his colleagues to support the effort to obtain the property.

South Laguna doesn’t get much attention from City Hall, nor does it have as many gathering places as other parts of Laguna Beach, he said.

“This is our opportunity to do something and to do something right,” he said.

Dicterow added that if the garden is lost, nothing in the South Laguna neighborhood can replace it.

Mayor Kelly Boyd said he was wary of adding more city money toward buying the site. He suggested allocating portions of Arch Beach Heights or Alta Laguna parks for gardening plots should the South Laguna facility be torn out.

South Laguna resident Ann Christoph, a director emerita of the civic association, said it recently completed a petition drive that gathered about 200 signatures from residents all over the city who urged the council to save the garden.

She said fundraising efforts — the civic association has raised about $175,000 so far — have been hurt by a lack of a “deal on the table” or a deadline to meet.

“You have to have that fixed goal,” Christoph said.

The garden was established in 2009. The land’s owner at the time, Paul Tran, let the gardeners use it for free. He sold the plots to Altuwaijri in 2013 for $1.2 million.

Tran said at the time that Altuwaijri is a doctor who had envisioned building a medical facility there.

BRADLEY ZINT is a contributor to Times Community News.