Letter: Fried’s Column Needs Corrections

1. It wasn’t 30 units in 2007. It was 15 in 2010.
2. City up zoned M1-b commercial property without EIR. CEQA violation.
3. 8 feet of water in 2010 maybe, but 8 feet of mud? Wrong.
4. Investor angels? They locate property, find loopholes, develop. Not out of goodness of hearts, but goodness of profits.
5. Did everything to satisfy neighbors by reducing scale/impacts? Wrong. Increased scale 8 to 15 then 30 units, + 46 parking spaces. Less than an acre, football-field sized, half the size of the White House in DC. Doubles the population of our neighborhood. Compromise never offered reducing scale, size, density, despite numerous attempts.
6. Suggestions for appropriate neighborhood compatible project size offered at beginning were ignored. Not “out of nowhere.” If stuck with original 8 units, even 15 proposed later, the project would already be finished. Recent doubling to 30 enraged people throughout Laguna. Delays were self-inflicted by the developers. Whitewash.
7. Creek mitigations required by CCC, not voluntary. The opposite.
8. Neighbors characterized as anti-development cronies? Fried is the crony. He’s never presented a reasoned, researched essay on this project.
9. Your “loophole” for the lawsuit basis was due to disregard for disclosure requirements, a check to lobbying of the CCC, by the lawyers, architects, and big money team financed by Las Vegas casino / nightclub money. Non-disclosure of said meetings was deemed illegal. Offending commissioners fined and replaced. Technical violation? Wrong again.
10. Construction well off the ground? Not 47 vehicles. Plus rows of trash dumpsters and whatever else ended up being stored below would be on main beach now, or jammed in the storm drain if project had been in place during last week’s mandatory evacuation.
11. Lawsuit isn’t new. It’s been there, and the judge’s ruling that this project violated planning processes all along, from the beginning.
12. Artists, even a majority, are opposed to this oversized apartment complex monster. They don’t want apartment buildings in the canyon for obvious reasons that’ll be addressed next week because we don’t get the space Fried does.
13. Thank you to everyone but the developers, for opposing this proposal. Any research and you’d learn the lawsuit ruling is still there and not concluded.
14. It not over. As if CCC decision overrides superior court ruling? There’s so much Fried missed. Wrong again.
15. It’s the neighbors that have been dragged through the mud.

Fried’s all wrong.

John Albritton, Laguna Beach