Newest Cottage Plan Lacks Merit

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Editor,

I am mystified after reading about Scott Tenney’s plan to move two historic cottages to his 15 acre Bluebird Canyon property.

I know of this property and it was sold under the condition no other buildings or additions to the house could be added.  The footprint of the home may be improved.  That is why the price was so reasonable.

There are serious landslide issues. The property is certainly beautiful and would make a great organic farm but how could he succeed with the request to install two historic buildings?  Why would the city help fund an inappropriate, prohibited action. If the cottages were moved and there was a landslide, will the taxpayers be funding rebuilding as well? Mr. Tenney, as the buyer, certainly he is aware of these conditions.  Why is the City Council even entertaining the idea?

As for the idea of moving the cottages to the recently acquired 3.2 acres that the city purchased to be left as open space, wouldn’t that be the opposite of having open space?   Putting three cottages on land designated as open space is a violation in spirit and intent of the purchase.

Are you kidding? What kind of logic is operating here?  Mr. Tenney seems to be asking for the moon and the City Council is thinking it over!

Moving historic cottages to private land that is prohibited from having any additional buildings at taxpayer expense or moving the cottages to designated open space in the name of preserving the environment is amazing and wrong.

 The irony that Mr. Tenney is employed by BP Oil and Gas seems to be lost on everyone. 

Rachel Uchiozno, Laguna Beach

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  1. Editor – Regarding “Newest Cottage Plan Lacks Merit”, Guest Editor Rachel Uchiozno seems to have her facts crossed. In April I was approached by numerous members of several well recognized Laguna Beach civic organizations who asked if my family would be willing to relocate one or several of the historic cottages to our Blue Bird Canyon Property. Although reluctant to do so we agreed to evaluate the feasibility of moving and locating the cottages onto our hillside, demolishing one or two of our existing structures to maintain the current developed density and placing the historic cottages on new foundations. Our review revealed the project as difficult and cost prohibitive and because of this determined not to commit our personal resources toward these efforts. During our review we also looked at proximal parcels owned by the City that at one point had been part of our own property. We reasoned if there truly was a will and interest in saving the cottages then using one of them to create neighborhood/nature center inside a large park-like setting adjacent to private and public open space was a reasonable solution. We recognized that taking some of the open space to accommodate the ~500 sq-ft Clark Cottage (for example) ran counter to the idea of open space but reasoned that such a move could potentially improve the cultural value of that parcel. We felt the cottage could act as an administrative center much like the Nix Nature Center in Laguna Canyon providing educational opportunities to members of our community. Our proposal was to accomplish all of this using private funds.

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