The California Coastal Commission will review an update to the Laguna Beach Downtown Specific Plan on Dec. 15, teeing up an end to the years-long effort by city officials to ease permitting and parking requirements for some new businesses.
Among the changes under discussion is whether Laguna Beach should update the Downtown Specific Plan to limit the requirement to apply for a conditional use permit to new bars, restaurants, live entertainment venues, and souvenir shops. All other commercial uses would be permitted-by-right, avoiding time-intensive, costly review by city staffers and the Planning Commission.
While many community members are preoccupied with holiday travel plans, the Commission must act on the 325-page amendment by Jan. 17 per state law, according to the staff report.
Councilmembers also want to slash requirements for on-site parking, which has long been a barrier for new businesses to move into buildings that were developed without designated parking spaces.
Under the outgoing rules, retail business owners have to provide one parking space per 250 square feet of gross floor area. Likewise, food service businesses have to provide one space for every 100 square feet of gross floor area. To get around this requirement, business owners often elect to pay the city an in-lieu fee to help fund a future parking structure.
If certified by the Coastal Commission, the new parking requirement would be three spaces for every 1,000 square feet of gross floor area for certain commercial uses. City staff clarified that businesses that have operated for decades with “legal nonconforming parking conditions” will be allowed to stay open as long as they don’t intensify their commercial use.
City officials are hopeful for the Commission will approve the Specific Plan with a positive recommendation from Coastal staff, Community Development Director Marc Wiener said.
“The update strikes the balance between allowing greater flexibility in land uses with a streamlined review, while continuing to protect the unique character and aesthetics of the Downtown,” Wiener wrote in an email. “Over the past several months, City staff has worked closely with the Coastal Commission on preparing for the hearing.”
There are some businesses leaders who believe loosening parking requirements will clear a path for the types of businesses residents want, said Bob Chapman, a commercial real estate broker and former Laguna Beach planning commissioner. However, there is also a contingent who don’t expect the Specific Plan will open the floodgates to landlords seeking radically different tenants. Converting an older building from retail to foodservice can cost up to $500,000, Chapman said.
The so-called blending parking and narrowing the types of businesses that require a conditional use permit will together provide more certainty to investors.
“Certainty can give a landlord confidence that they can secure a tenant that operates a successful business in other locations and wants to add Laguna Beach but currently doesn’t want to modify their business plan based on a curated Specific Plan adopted 35 years ago,” Chapman said.
The Specific Plan would also limit new construction along the coastal bluff from Cliff Drive to Sleepy Hollow Lane to structures no more than 24 feet tall. Dedicating a 25-foot-wide easement to the City for a public walking path would also be a condition for approval of new projects.
Commercial buildings in the Downtown Office district would be allowed to add a second floor if the addition is used for long-term low income, housing restricted to City employees, senior citizens, housing for the disabled, or business and professional offices.
Village Laguna continues to be concerned about various issues they voiced to the Council’s attention in July 2020, Village Laguna president Anne Caenn said in a statement.
“Since the Coastal Commission is responsible for California Environmental Quality Act compliance, we are disappointed that less than one page in the staff report is devoted to this analysis,” Caenn said.
The state panel’s staff concurred with the City’s stance that the amendment is exempt from further environmental review. The Specific Plan’s impacts on historic resources, aesthetics, traffic, parking, and visual character need to be thoroughly studied, Caenn said.
Village Laguna is also concerned about the cutting parking requirements for new businesses in the downtown. A planned parking structure is cited in the Coastal Commission staff report is slated for 93 to 258 parking spaces even though a parking garage at the Village Entrance was resoundingly rejected by the public and the council in 2013.
“During the pandemic shutdowns, the council voted to reconsider it, but such a
garage plan has not been publicly reviewed nor supported by residents,” Caenn said.
The Commission convenes via Zoom at 9 a.m. on Dec. 15. For details on how to submit a speaker request, visit coastal.ca.gov.
To the Village Laguna people, the update proposed by the City to the Coastal Commission is exactly what you would block if you could. Why, one might ask? I do not know, but VL Chair Ann Caenn makes plain their position: THEIR opinions were not “studied” enough, ie used to kill the update
Easy to distort and poison any idea by boiling it down to one sentence. I believe Ms. Caenn stated the plan was not reviewed by residents. Mr. Wray, I am weary of your imprecise comments. Your agenda is slipping down your leg, into your shoes. You need to change.