Episode 3 - Downtown EIR, Artist Properties, & Hillsides

In Episode 3, Mayor Mark Orgill discusses several issues that residents have recently raised in the community. The episode includes an overview of the Environmental Impact Report process for the Downtown Specific Plan and explains how environmental review informs decision making before any policy direction is considered.

The conversation also addresses questions about the appraisal values associated with the artist live work properties recently acquired by the Laguna Beach Community Land Trust. Mayor Orgill explains the appraisal process and the City’s role in supporting the preservation of these properties.

The episode concludes with a brief discussion about hillside development and how the City’s General Plan and zoning laws guide where and how development may occur.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today we're going to talk about some uh things that are going around the community having to do with some can uh issues that are being addressed by city council uh right now. And although we certainly understand everybody's concerns regarding some of these uh complicated topics that city council are discussing, uh we just wanted to provide as much information as we can to add some clarity to it to uh hopefully calm some nerves and and really just uh provide accurate information. So let's just start um with a with a couple of uh high-level questions to get started and then we can get into some detail as we move forward. Let's talk about the downtown specific plan phase two and the environmental impact report. A little bit of context to it. There's some things that are being talked about amongst the community, and I get it. You know, it's not easy to understand what all of this technical um issues are around an environmental impact report. And, you know, in my view, it's about casting a big net for the environmental impact report, and then when it comes time to planning, you've covered everything you can start to select within that report. Um and I understand people just don't understand when they see 600 and some odd residences. I I can I understand that it's a concern, but let's help folks understand what it means.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Sure. And um certainly we got a lot of emails about this subject uh recently. I I get that a lot of people are mad. Um, and I'm I encourage people to express that. Uh but but then to take a breath and say, uh, what are we really doing? And as you've explained, what we're doing is a programmatic EIR, uh, Environmental Impact Report. Programmatic EIRs are broad, and what they do is just like you said, they create a broad umbrella with which follow-up projects can be approved, but they still have to go through our normal approval process. What we're doing is addressing CEQA through that programmatic EIR. So you do, you take a really broad look at it, um, and then whatever comes out of it undoubtedly is gonna be much smaller. The other concern that I think people have expressed is gosh, are we gonna be tearing down buildings and we're gonna start to look like Dana Point? No offense to our friends, fans in Dana Point, but um that kind of um more sheer cavernous approach as you go down Coast Highway. And the answer to that is no. I think there's a very Laguna-oriented solution to the downtown specific plan changes. And um I know that's what we're gonna follow with uh so precision, precise ways to add housing to uh these spaces. The other thing I try to remind people is um we're required to study this area by our housing element. And uh study is what we'll do, and then that'll come back to the council for a decision later on. But we are required to look at this because we have to provide enough sites for our regional housing needs allocation. Megan, if you want to add anything.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Saving money with the mic situation.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

We only have a couple of mics today, so bear with us.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Um Yeah, the Dave did a great summary there. I I would just I think we we talked about on our prior podcast the importance of staying in compliance with our housing element. It has great consequences if we fall out of compliance and the state uh starts to talk to us about failing to be in compliance with our housing element. So it's very critical that we follow along with what is required of us there. Um and and just that a CEQA document, as both of you have alluded to, is an informational document. It's something for studying and informational purposes, but the idea is to study more than you ever really need, because if you don't study at all, you have to go back and do it again. And so in order to keep the timeline going, the idea is to have a broad project to study and then create a menu of options for the council to really select from in a much more precise surgical way. And that would be in compliance with our housing element to do it that way, the process that we've set up.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Right. Thank you. So I receive a lot of screenshots from folks in the community, and they're asking me questions and they're uh obviously concerned, and a lot of the concern is generated by how these topics are uh talked about online. And uh, you know, I'll I'll uh a lot of the folks that are um talking about this are either talking about things out of context or that just inserting disinformation inside uh into the conversation. And it's you know it's meant to generate and get a reaction of people, right? In my opinion, a lot of this stuff. It's just to blow things out of proportion intentionally. That's discouraging for me, to be honest with you. I think that, you know, I'm trying to encourage the community to engage and have conversations, all of us together, so we can get through some of these complex issues. And that's why we're talking about this today, is to make sure that we can all be a part of the conversation, but do it with accurate, real information. And just to let everybody know as well, we have not had a conversation prior to these topics, so the questions I'm going to be asking, uh, none of this was rehearsed, it's just us. This is the first time some of these issues have been addressed. So I'm going to jump into the um artist properties that were purchased. Actually, the city originally we started the um the effort to create the uh uh community housing trust nonprofit, and then we handed it over to community members, and we did an open call for uh potential board members to step up, make application, and then Bob Weyland and myself selected uh the board members that are now part of that community land trust. Then the city had started the escrow, and you can weigh in if I get anything incorrect, on the properties, and then we once the land trust was formed and had their um legal, I guess were identified legally, uh, then the escrow was transferred over to them and they closed escrow. Am I pretty close here?

SPEAKER_02 6:12

That's a good job so far. So good.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

So Megan, walk us through uh the the financial aspect of this. I know there's some questions on value, and if we got a good value, I have my own opinion, I'll keep that to myself for the time being. Uh and I have owned properties in the canyon and done several transactions out there, so I do feel like I have a pretty good idea of what the value is out out in the canyon. But just walk us through um the reality and what we dealt with regarding those uh uh properties.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

The original list price for those properties I think was uh a little shy of$9.5 million. And the city has its its policy appraises properties when it considers an acquisition. And in this case, you know, we paid$8 million, which is below the appraisal value. And so I think we negotiated a good deal to start with and continued to negotiate, uh landed below appraised value, um in what appears to be a good deal for the city or through for the land trust. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, for the land trust. And uh prior to um taking on this initiative, you know, there, you know, it's a it was a community issue. There was a commun a concern amongst the many community members about the loss of these work and a few live spaces out there and what it would mean to the community and our artist community specifically. And some of those folks that came forward early on, I called them advisors for lack of a better word. Guys like Dave Ship, Mark Christie, Dave Brown, Dan McInna, those guys. Um, you know, these guys are all have uh dealt in the world of real estate. And I remember when we talked about it preliminarily, um the the the price was not, you know, um it was somewhere in the middle, right? Everybody felt confident. The the main thrust of the conversation was how can we put um and how can the city and the land trust uh eventually put something together to to save these um spaces. But with that said, the idea wasn't at all cost by any means. I mean, you know, these guys, you know, there's we all want value, right? We want the dollar to go as far as we can. So I just want the community to understand that, you know, we did a lot, you know, 15 at least months of due diligence on these properties. Um I'm happy to tour the properties if anybody would like to tour them. In fact, I would reach out to me and let me know. I'd be more than happy to walk you through the properties. Uh again, they it's a mix of mostly workspaces at this time, and there are some live spaces. There are future opportunities, not for, you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, big, massive redevelopments. There are areas where you can, you know, add some live space here and there. It really is up to the land trust going forward. But there's no intent. The idea was to save and preserve the properties for the use of artists. The it's not, it was the idea wasn't to get into any redevelopment plan. Um can that take place in the future? It certainly could, but that wasn't the intent. The intent was just to preserve the properties as close to imperpetuity as we could possibly get. And I personally hope that we find other opportunities, to be honest with you, for more properties. In fact, it was brought up last night that one of the properties was going to be boat storage and the other one was um going to possibly be a use store. Um those were general um idea folks that were inter other folks that were interested in them, that was their their use. So I think the community is better served uh by far with the um keep preserving them as artists um to to serve artists in our art community.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Mark, you you just said something I was gonna say, but uh which is at last night when Casey Parlett was talking about what this use would have been, and you're right, a boat he said a boat yard. The other thing that I think resonated with me with what he said was just a reminder that um the scope of our artists uh uh their talents, their fields, is not not just someone, and I'm not just saying that's the majority of we sitting and painting uh like a plain air artist. These are industrial artists that make a lot of noise, a lot of dust, um at different hours, and that's what and losing that element of our artist community, I think, is really what we were focusing on avoiding, and I think did so successfully, so that people like Casey could stay in the community, community he's been in all his life.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

He also brought up the fact that he w he was a you know born in Laguna, his family's from Laguna, he was the lifeguard, and he actually was uh working for one of the artists that was out in the canyon, and that's how he learned his craft. Okay, we're back. Sorry, we had to take a quick break. One of our mics went down, so pardon us, we're all going to be sharing one mic. Um, and Dave is the man in the middle. A couple of things, Megan, we left off with us talking about, you know, what is it that makes a property developable. And you know, most of us are used to our single lots, whether they be 50 feet, 40 feet, or 60 feet wide by X number of feet long, right? Not many of us have huge parcels. But let's talk about that. And then after that, I want to talk about what our concerns were as far as the hillsides being um vulnerable to development. And this goes, and I'm I'm sorry to keep driving this point home, but it's just so important to me, is when we talk about and are dealing with all of these um these uh the the not accurate information, right, regarding, for instance, this slope issue, when when we all can agree that we're concerned about the development of our hillsides. So where I would like to see the conversation go, what can we do to assure our hillsides do not get developed? And I and I that's kind of my point about some of our conversations in the community. I think that we we kind of go down these rabbit holes and it really um distracts us from taking on the big concern. So but before we get further into that, uh we can talk about what it is that that um uh uh creates a buildable piece of property.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

The zoning code has a definition for a buildable site. So uh I that's where where it all comes from. At the end of the day, when we analyze a buildable site, we look to that definition in the zoning code to analyze does it qualify or not. Stepping back from that there are sometimes what we call paper lots, right? And the a good example of that is Arch Beach Heights. If if you there was a tract to your point, there's a tract map that might have created a bunch of lots and you know, Archibutes like when I used to live up there was 25 by 100. That's a lot. I lived on a fully developed street, a road, you know, it was a public street. There are those tract maps that are created on paper. Some of those streets are not actual streets you can drive on. They are if you went and tried to, you know, if you look on GIS, they're covered in habitat. And those aren't actual roadways. So you can't have a lot, a buildable lot if you can't access it. It kind of there's more to the definition than that, but that's probably the simplest way to think about it. So when we talk about a buildable lot, first of all, you have to you can't build on that lot until you qualify as a buildable lot. So under our zoning code, another way to think of it is as a two-step process. First, it has to be a buildable lot, and then it has to meet the development standards for the lot. So whenever you're whatever you're going to build there has to meet the rules for your zone for that lot. So uh many, many parcels in the city are not buildable lots because there are not roadways that go there. So the first, you know, sometimes we get applications for road extensions, and that's an effort to create a buildable lot. So kind of stepping back is that m much of our hillsides are protected by virtue of the fact that they aren't buildable lots at all. And even if they were a buildable lot, for example, if they're zoned open space, you still can't develop on it. You that doesn't change um the underlying nature. You can only build what the development standards allow for. And if the development standards are that you can't build on it because it's open space, then even if you can reach it by virtue of a road, you can't build on it.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Remember the other thing that the city does, and this is in our our longtime policies, is we're we have a goal to acquire open space parcels. Uh we have a lot of them already. Uh we're continuing to look at uh some parcels. We've got two that we're looking at right now. Um so if anything, it's the reverse of what people are suspicious of. We're trying to add to our our uh pool of open space resources. Um I thought Megan's point about very high fire hazard severity zones is really important. Um that's another protection. Um it's remember our the maps that the state sent down put most of Laguna Beach, so much of Laguna Beach in that very high fire hazard severity zone, and certainly the areas of open space and canyons that we're concerned about. So we'd much rather have those and be able to keep them as habitat, keep them as fire-safe habitat and uh vr versus open them up to development.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Well, thanks for that, Dave. That really so that's I guess um what I was alluding to. So that would be a perfect conversation for us to be having. You you mentioned that we're in the process of um some potential uh new um acquisitions, right? Um open space acquisitions. And so I can imagine the community coming together and looking at it strategically and and sitting down and having a discussion on understanding uh any vulnerabilities we might have and any other possible acquisitions that that could take place, right? So that would be a proactive, positive, uh worthy community debate, right? And uh so I appreciate you bringing that to the table. Is there anything else that um you guys can think of that you've seen in the world of next door? Not to give the platform a plug, but nothing. Okay, well then in uh in conclusion I will say this next time we'll have a proper mic. We were going to um stop this podcast because of this mic issue, but I'll be honest with you, I wanted to get this information out to the community as soon as we can, so I apologize for uh this uh unfortunate issue with the mic. And you know, I just want to encourage everybody to know that they can reach out to any of us. Uh again, you know, if you want to have you know uh get together a group of your neighbors together and invite us over for a conversation, we're more than happy to do that. And um, you know, just come to us with any of your uh questions. We're more than happy to talk to you all. And so hopefully we'll be back and have some more information to you all in the next week or two. And I look forward to that. Thank you very much.