Commission holds key to awaited plan

After some give-and-take on both sides, Laguna Beach may one day

finally have its long-sought Village Entrance and bona fide Arts

District -- and the city hopefully can provide improved conditions

for its hard-working employees.

With the City Council’s approval of a plan for the Act V remote

parking lot project -- see that story on page 1 -- all systems are

“go” for a project that began a decade ago with the Village Entrance

Task Force.

This citizens’ group met for months in the mid-1990s to craft a complicated plan to move some city facilities eastward in order to

make room for a welcoming area in town for the thousands who flock to

Laguna for the arts, the beaches and the scenery.

Things are looking good, but the project is not out of the woods

yet.

After years of local wrangling over the number of parking spaces

to be allowed, the size of buildings and other assorted issues, the

project will move to the venue of the California Coastal Commission,

whose staff hasn’t promised it will buy into the idea.

City officials hope to get the plan before the commission in June,

which may in itself be optimistic.

Since City Councilwoman Toni Iseman -- who now champions the

project, after earlier reservations -- sits on the Coastal

Commission, many feel that the Act V proposal will sail through with

flying colors. But the commission’s staff is known for taking its

own, tough views of projects, and this one requires a special

allowance to permit two-story structures.

And one sticking point seems to still rankle: moving the fueling

station at the terminus of Laguna Canyon Road to the canyon location

inland. Some in the community are still not convinced this can be

done safely, despite city assurances and Iseman’s own turnabout in

this respect. The commission will certainly hear from these critics

when it places the issue into the public forum.

We wait with fingers crossed to see what the coastal staff and

commission will make of this plan -- the linchpin of improvements the

city has long needed and planned for.