City’s Oversight Puts Deal in Jeopardy : * Laguna Beach Should Have Read Fine Print in Land Agreement With State, Irvine Co.

Reading the fine print is part of any land transaction, whether it involves the purchase of a house lot or 82 acres of wilderness that will be set aside for open space.

In navigating a deal among Laguna Beach, the Irvine Co. and the California Wildlife Conservation Board, somebody in City Hall goofed.

It was only when the state was about to close a deal negotiated for it by the city that it found out what the fine print said. It was not at all happy to find that the Irvine Co. had retained some rights to the land in question. The state promptly threatened to back out of a deal that had been hailed as a landmark cooperative agreement on open space between a developer and various levels of government.

Fortunately, negotiations began recently to prevent the state from pulling out of its agreement to buy the 82 acres as part of a huge coastal regional park.

But understandably, the developer has indicated a previous unwillingness to reopen negotiations to a significant extent, because of the threat of jeopardizing a complex agreement that had been worked out painstakingly over a period of months.

This never should have happened. It would not have if Laguna Beach had taken more care to ensure that all the t’s had been crossed and the i’s dotted during the original negotiations.

The larger agreement began with a much-ballyhooed purchase by Laguna Beach of 2,150 acres of Laguna Canyon from the Irvine Co. for $78 million in August. The California Wildlife Conservation Board then agreed to buy 82 acres of that land from the city, but left the fine points to the city.

Later came the knowledge of 20 pages of restrictions that allowed the Irvine Co. to retain water and mining rights, authority over restoration and maintenance of wildlife habitat and rights to install utilities.

It would be a shame to have this special agreement collapse because of some oversights.

Getting all parties to agree to such a land arrangement depends necessarily on the ability to get everybody on board a complicated document.

The long list of conditions is the subject of the current objections, and it was encouraging to learn that several state concerns were apparently resolved in the first meeting of the parties aimed at fixing the agreement.

Other points should be resolved too, and this special agreement should be concluded.