VILLAGE ENTRANCE
The “Village Entrance” site is the City-owned property across Laguna Canyon Road from the Festival grounds. It includes the asphalt parking lots and remaining maintenance facilities that adjoin the City Hall and stretch northward along Laguna Canyon Road and the Laguna Creek channel. For over 30 years we have been hoping for a more attractive entrance, including a park and creekside improvements.
In 2008 the Council decided on a preferred project consisting of a 580 space parking garage and a park between the creek channel and Laguna Canyon Road. They authorized preparation of an Environmental Impact Report.
Subsequently the Council received a cost estimate of $52 million to build the project, and a parking analysis that concludes that the demand for paid parking at that location will not produce enough income to repay the cost of constructing the parking garage.
The Council directed the consultants to explore the idea of making an agreement with a developer to build the project, add apartments and lease parts of the project back to the city. On October 6, 2009 the Council added that alternative to the list of Village Entrance options to be considered by the Environmental Impact Report. The Environmental Impact report, now costing $93,510, is due back next year.
Where do we go from here?
Rather than adding more density to the project, the solution lies in a more modest, affordable project, emphasizing the park and creek restoration, and providing parking that is economically sustainable year-round.
What are the opportunities for a creekside park? Look to San Luis Obispo’s successful downtown creek restoration.
INTRODUCTION
In the mid-twentieth century, flood control agencies often placed natural creeks into sterile concrete channels. Their inherent beauty as living conduits of nature were lost, as man’s insensitivity prevailed. With the beginning of the environmental movement in the 1970’s, things began to change.
Now, all across America, cities and towns have re-discovered their creeks and rivers. These waterways have become community focal points, providing a sense of nature within the urban environment…often including trails and parkways along with beautiful native plantings.
Laguna, however, remains mired in the pre-environmentalist past when it comes to the treatment of its namesake Laguna Canyon Creek. Rather than respecting and honoring the presence of this natural waterway we degrade it with a barren concrete channel and fence it off with an ugly, rusty, chain link fence. Such humiliation for one of nature’s gifts to our community!
In the early 1970’s, Laguna purchased Main Beach and created a beautiful public park to unite the downtown village to the sea. The Village Entrance should be the Laguna Canyon counterpart to Main Beach. By beautifying and celebrating the creek and creating a beautiful creek side park, the Village Entrance can unite the downtown to the canyon and create “canyon” and “ocean” bookends to encompass our village. As a community that strives to value the natural environment, we should do no less.
DESCRIPTION
The Village Entrance site includes the parking lot adjacent to the Recreation Department, called the “Lumberyard Lot”, and the “Employee Lot” between Laguna Canyon Road and the Laguna Canyon Creek channel. The rear of the Village Entrance (behind the creek channel) includes maintenance buildings, the historic sewage treatment tower (currently used as storage), and newly-created parking lot that takes the place of maintenance facilities relocated to the ACT V lot in Laguna Canyon.
BACKGROUND
The City of Laguna Beach has been considering various ideas for upgrading the Village Entrance for approximately three decades. In 1991, the Planning Commission visited the creek restoration that has become the centerpiece of San Luis Obispo’s revitalized downtown area. Impressed by the beauty and commercial success of downtown San Louis Obispo, the Planning Commission requested that the Laguna Beach City Council place a high priority on investigating the beautification of Laguna Canyon Creek and creation of a park within the Village Entrance.
Responding to the Planning Commission’s suggestion, the City Council created the Village Entrance Task Force in 1995 to study the issues related to the planning and design of this property. As a part of this comprehensive study, it was recommended that a design competition be held.
Other important criteria that the Task Force agreed upon: no residential or commercial development should be allowed in the Village Entrance, and the architectural design “should embody the scale, details, and overall character of the city. Trendy solutions….have no place in this project.”
In March, 2001, the City of Laguna Beach announced the Village Entrance Design Competition. Due to problems with moving the maintenance yard to ACT V, the Village Entrance Design Competition stipulated that designs include all maintenance uses within the Village Entrance, and that the minimum number of parking spaces required would be 395.This parking amount was derived from the combined total of 245 existing spaces (Lumberyard and Employee Lots), plus 150 extra spaces to provide additional parking for festival and downtown uses. After a lengthy public review process, in July 2002 the City Council selected the team of Studio One Eleven / Borthwick Guy Bettenhausen as the master planners for the project.
As it is today
Artist rendering of design
In 2003, a changed City Council voted to proceed with moving the maintenance yard to ACT V, and instructed the consultants to include additional public parking spaces in the proposed Village Entrance parking structure. The proposed ACT V maintenance yard required a large reduction in the number of parking spaces at ACT V that could be used for the festival season. Because of this concern, in 2005 a compromise was reached to reduce the size of the new corporate yard to allow more public parking at ACT V and include additional maintenance / storage uses in the proposed Village Entrance parking structure.
From 2005 until 2007, the consultant team proceeded with designs for the Village Entrance and its proposed parking structure, culminating with a reduced-sized plan that “notched” around the existing sewer pump station.
In late 2008 the Council directed that City staff and consultants investigate the idea of a public / private partnership for the parking structure that could include residential units on top of parking to reduce costs to the public.
A THOUGHT
What seems lacking is the understanding of the value of improving Laguna Creek and creating a beautiful rustic park shaded by native sycamores and oaks in the heart of our village. By bringing its creek out from the underground channel, San Luis Obispo lost asphalt paving and parking spaces, but the value to the community (businesses and otherwise) has been immeasurable. When Laguna decided to purchase Main Beach and removed the existing gas stations and other commercial properties, parking was lost and the tax rolls were temporarily diminished. In both cases, far-sighted vision outweighed narrow thinking, and the environment prevailed. When nature wins, we all win.