Land use element in place

Most folks haven’t a clue about the city’s Land Use Element in the General Plan and couldn’t care less that it was recently updated.

They should.

The land use element dictates the policies for all development in the city: what and where you can build or operate. It is one of the major tools used to determine how the city will look, feel and function in the years to come. To be effective, it must reflect the needs and desires of the community, and the updated element approved July 7 by the City Council meets that goal, city officials said.

“Anyone coming to Laguna for the first time could read this document and know what the town is all about,” said former Planning Commissioner Barbara Metzger, who worked as a community volunteer on the revised element. “It’s a very good picture of Laguna.”

The revised element contains 11 goals:

?Create a community that is sustainable, resilient and regenerative;

?Preserve, enhance and respect the unique character and identity of residential neighborhoods;

?Preserve, enhance and respect the unique, small-scale village character and individual identity of commercial areas;

?Enhance the visitor experience while maximizing protection of the community’s coastal and other natural resources;

?Promote compatibility among land uses in the community;

?Provide a diversity of land uses that enhance the community;

?Protect, preserve and enhance the community’s natural resources;

?Minimize the impact of the automobile on the character of Laguna Beach and emphasize a pedestrian-oriented environment, safe sidewalks, landscaped buffer zones and alternate means of transportation;

?Provide comprehensive public services and infrastructure;

?Ensure proposals for new development, subdivisions and major remodels are sufficiently evaluated to protect public health and safety and natural resources; and

?Proactively participate in planning activities of regional and adjacent jurisdictions.

Each goal is followed by recommended policies and actions. The policies identify what to do and the actions identify how to do it.

For instance: The policy for the goal of sustainability is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below the 1990 levels by 2050. Actions include revising the Transportation, Circulation and Growth Management Element of the General Plan to promote the use of mass transit, bicycling, walking and telecommuting.

Adoption of the element by the council is a commitment to carry out the goals, policies, actions and implementation, by which development projects will be measured.

The update took five years to complete and was approved in less than 15 minutes, including kudos to the Planning Commission, city staff and community members who contribute their time and expertise.

“We expected resistance when we took the draft into [City Manager] Ken Frank’s office, but I don’t think we were there two minutes,” said Planning Commissioner Linda Dietrich. “That’s how well the document is written.”

Dietrich and veteran Commissioner Norm Grossman served as the point guards for the land use element revision, appointed five years ago as the sub-committee by Commission Chairwoman Anne Johnson.

“What was just amazing to me [was] that we came up with a document that has the support of the entire community that participated,” Dietrich said. “We did good.”

The state requires every city to have a general plan. Laguna’s was first adopted in 1983.

Grossman believes the philosophical underpinning set forth in the city’s general plan are as, if not more, important than the blueprint for future development.

“It is critical that any update reflect the goals and desires of the residents,” Grossman said. “You can not overstate how important it is to have core values in place.”

The city’s general plan has seven state-mandated elements: land use, circulation (vehicular), housing, conservation, open space, noise and safety.

Of those, Grossman said the land use element is considered the most important.

“When I reapplied for the Planning Commission in 2001, one reason was to work on the update of the element and to ensure the process was as open as possible,” Grossman said.

Once begun, the revision included workshops, drafts, commission hearings and more workshops.

“It took two years just to do the public workshops where people talked about development issues,” Grossman said.

The first step was to review with a critical eye the existing element to see what worked and what didn’t, what should be kept and what should be tossed, according to Grossman.

“We worked through issues and then [city] Planner Carolyn Martin, Linda and I rated them and tried to synthesize all the information,” Grossman said.

That was taken to the Planning Commission, followed by more workshops, more commission hearings and between 30 and 40 rewrites of a draft element. All told, 34 public meetings were held, 17 by the subcommittee and 17 by the commission.

“About six months ago, we made substantial revisions,” Grossman said. “Our first draft had a lot of words like ‘wherever possible’ and ‘if feasible,’ and we had considerable testimony asking us to remove such language “” so we did.”

By then, Planner Monica Tuchscher was on the project and the subcommittee decided to add the sustainable goal to the land use element.

“Monica pulled it together and it met state requirements, which probably puts us in the forefront of cities,” Grossman said.

For Dietrich, sustainability is the most important factor in the updated element.

“We need to move beyond being concerned about the ocean and become concerned about the whole, not just the separate elements of the environment,” Dietrich said. “I am about as conservative as you can get, so it is interesting that I should be the one pushing this.”

The subcommittee considered recommendations from the Environmental Committee about “green” construction that uses less energy, less water and lies more easily on the land.

“We put in many of the recommendations from the committee, particularly to reduce reliance on automobiles,” Dietrich said.

The revised element also includes a mission statement, with which each element of the general plan, as they are updated, must comply and guiding principals for land use decisions, Grossman said.

Some of the guiding principles and goals are similar, some virtually identical, but the goals are specific to the land use element and the guiding principles are applicable to every element of the general plan, Grossman said.

Also new to the element: a glossary.

“It clarifies all the planning mumbo-jumbo,” Grossman said.

Dietrich said the combination of the glossary and the mission statement makes the element easy to read and to understand.

The revised element also includes residential demographics, an economic overview, existing development patterns and trends.

Grossman said Tuchscher and Martin deserve to be recognized for the slogging they did for the commission.

“And the commission got intelligent, informed opinions and suggestions form the public in a mostly civil way,” Grossman said.

Participants varied, except for two representatives of Athens Group, a major player in city development; and three members of the community: Ed Almonza, former Planning Commissioner Becky Jones and Metzger, the latter two close associates of and advisors to Councilwoman Verna Rollinger.

“They attended every meeting,” Grossman said.

Metzger was one of the editors of the final draft of the element.

“Her help was invaluable,” Dietrich said.

Additionally, city staff mapped 26 areas in Laguna Beach after conducting a detailed study of the areas and finding that the land uses allowed did not match the zoning regulations, which need to be resolved.

The complete text of the revised land use element and the maps are available online at www.lagunabeachcity.net.