Anti-High-rise Initiative

The people prevail to keep buildings low and save ocean views

“In 1970 the mayor of Laguna, who was also the president of the Chamber of Commerce, proposed a new zone that would permit hotels and condos up to one hundred feet tall along the beach front, allowing a string of high-rise buildings from Broadway to Bluebird Canyon.

The new zone was supported by the City Council and the Planning Commission, the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Realtors, the architects and builders, the downtown merchants, the hotel and motel owners, and the most influential newspaper in town, the News-Post. Everybody supported the new high-rise zone—except concerned citizens. An ad hoc committee was hastily formed to write an initiative to establish a city-wide building height limit of 36 feet. On August 3, 1971, the initiative was approved in every precinct and Laguna Beach became the first city in America to use the initiative process to establish a city-wide height limit. Arnold Hano, who led the initiative effort nearly 40 years ago, encourages us, “I hope the lesson is clear. The people count. When we show up in force, when we are united, we hold back the seemingly inevitable tide.”

In Laguna this strong tradition continues. Not only has the height limit helped preserve the village character of our community, but citizen activism encouraged by the initiative’s success lives on in dealing with other issues.