Laguna Beach city officials continue to grapple with what their town should look like, debating how to prevent certain large developments in the coastal city that could damage the small-town feel.
Now, council members are backing up, repealing a 2022 law that laid out building size guidelines after getting sued by a local development firm.
It’s the second time the city has seen a failed attempt to create stricter rules for building and parking lot size in the past two years.
In 2022, a group of residents placed Measure Q on the November ballot. That measure would have created special requirements for certain large development projects, and it would have required voter approval for other major developments.
But the voters rejected that measure in 2022 with about 64% “no” votes. A concern at the time was that the measure, if approved, couldn’t be changed without another public vote on the ballot.
That same year, city council members decided to bring forward their own ordinance that addressed similar concerns. That law was narrowly approved by the council in August 2022 after four public hearings, but it was quickly met with challenges after approval.
The law — Ordinance 1675 — prevented projects larger than 15,000 square feet near the city’s downtown zone and prevented parking lot combinations larger than 15,000 square feet. It also prevented any part of a building from making the structure taller than 36 feet.
The ordinance also outlined design requirements for sites larger than 15,000 square feet. Under the law, these large buildings must be designed to appear from the street as two or more different developments “to avoid the appearance of a single large project.”
But soon after that law was approved, it was met with a challenge in court and a referendum from voters calling for the ordinance to be repealed.
In late 2022, the Laguna Beach Company served the city a lawsuit claiming Ordinance 1675 violated the law and discriminated against their development firm. The Laguna Beach Company owns multiple properties near the city’s downtown area with some plans at the time to develop further in that area.
“The City is unfairly targeting and discriminating against Laguna Beach Company properties because of Laguna Beach Company’s open discussions about potential future developments on those properties,” reads the lawsuit from 2022. “Such targeting and discrimination against a particular property owner is impermissible.”
The city also received a referendum from voters, meaning enough people had signed a document urging the city to repeal Ordinance 1675. The Orange County Registrar of Voters certified 1,825 valid signatures, meaning the city must either repeal the law or put it on a ballot for voters’ consideration.
The council voted 3-0 at their meeting last week to completely repeal the ordinance to comply with the referendum and also address ongoing legal issues. Councilmember Mark Orgill recused himself from the vote due to a conflict of interest, and Councilmember George Weiss was absent from the meeting.
The council also directed staff to bring back another version of the ordinance that complies with state law and doesn’t leave the city susceptible to further legal action.
The Laguna Beach Company claimed in the lawsuit that the ordinance would prevent multi-residential housing developments with affordable units, which the company argued violates state housing law.
The company also argued that the ordinance “imposes subjective design standards” on housing projects, which is prohibited under Senate Bill 330.
City Attorney Megan Garibaldi told the city council last week that Ordinance 1675 still has “potential legal vulnerability” regarding state housing law for subjective design standards.
“It’s irresponsible to put something on the ballot that has a legal flaw in it,” Councilmember Sue Kempf said during the meeting. “You just don’t do that. It’s not responsible by the council, and it’s a terrible idea.”
“But I support everything that we put in here, and I want to make sure that we get it legally right,” Kempf said. “I think if we do that, we’ll have a really good ordinance and we’ll have something that we can be proud of, but we can’t put anything on that ballot that has inherent flaws.”
Some public speakers at the meeting asked the council to put the ordinance on the November ballot anyway to give the residents a voice and let them decide, even if it has some flaws.
However, the council decided that because there is an ongoing lawsuit against the ordinance, it would be a better decision to completely repeal it and start over.
“I think the overwhelming majority of Laguna residents want to keep Laguna looking like Laguna, and so the goal of the council at the time was to come up with a solution to do that,” Councilmember Alex Rounaghi said.
City staff will return to the council with an updated ordinance at a future meeting for discussion. The council meets next on June 11 at 4 p.m.
Angelina Hicks is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.