º Village Entrance parking–but
what do we do with the city
maintenance facility?
• Disposing of liquid wastes
safely. It’s easy. It’s free. And
it’s the environmentally friendly
thing to do!
My e-mail address is
Cheryl@LoveLagunaBeach.com
Love Laguna Beach! is prepared by
Cheryl Kinsman, member of the
Laguna Beach City Council, as a
service to the people of Laguna
Beach. Not prepared, printed or
mailed at taxpayer expense.
Love Laguna Beach!
October 17, 2003
(Volume 3, number 3)
by
arking at the Village Entrance requires a
move of the city maintenance facility. But
where do we move it?
It’s no secret to anyone who has been around Laguna Beach for
more than a few days that one of our critical needs is parking in our
downtown area. That is particularly true during our summer festival
season, but parking is and has been a problem for many years in
many seasons. I have been working hard to get more parking in
downtown for the three years I have been on the City Council–in
fact, such parking is one of my top priorities.
I believe that it is important that parking be close to downtown and
the festivals, and that parking be available to us year round in
convenient places that people want to park and walk.
Part of the solution to our parking problem is a proposed parking
garage at what is known as the Village Entrance. The Village
Entrance is the area next to City Hall and across the street from the
Laguna Playhouse and the Festival grounds.
Unfortunately, sitting on that space now is the City’s maintenance
facility, which is also sometimes called the “Corporate Yard.” Our
city maintenance facility is the place where our city employees
maintain city vehicles, store city materials, and to do the “behind the
scenes” activities that keep our city beautiful.
Our city maintenance facility is a deteriorating place to work–it is an
over-50 year old collection of corrugated metal buildings that are
functionally obsolete and both environmentally and financially
unsound.
In order to put a parking structure in place of the current city
maintenance facility, we must first move that maintenance facility.
There are two plans currently being put forward for the ultimate
location of the maintenance facility. Those plans are:
Temporarily move the city maintenance facility to
another location. This relocation will be for an unknown
cost, and will last until a new parking garage can be built.
We must then attempt to move the city maintenance
facility back underneath the new garage.
Build a new city maintenance facility on the back portion
of the Act V lot in Laguna Canyon. Move the
maintenance facility to that new location when the
construction is complete, and then build a new parking
structure at the Village Entrance.
(Newsletter continues on page 2)
I strongly support the second alternative of moving the
maintenance facility to Act V. I believe it provides the
following advantages:
We will end up with more year round parking
where we need it–near downtown and near the
festivals–under the second proposal versus
the first.
Under the second alternative, we will only
need to move the maintenance facility once,
avoiding the costs of constructing a
temporary facility and avoiding the disruption
and additional expense that comes from
moving twice.
We will end up with a maintenance facility of
adequate size to handle the anticipated load.
I believe there are severe problems with the first
alternative. Clearly, having to move the maintenance
facility twice is one problem. Others include:
The current maintenance facility sits on 1.77
acres. The new parking facility will sit on 1.4
acres. Downsizing the new facility by
approximately 17,200 square feet will
seriously compromise the functionality of the
maintenance facility.
The ceiling height of the new parking garage
structure will be too low to handle the
maintenance yard functions.
There is a large sewer pump station which sits
in the exact middle of the site. The sewage
pump station cannot be moved and will
require an extensive and expensive ventilation
system if employees are going to be required
to work next to it. A sewage pump station is
exactly what it sounds like--a place where raw
sewage is collected and then pumped out of
town to the sewage treatment plant.
There will be a hearing on October 22 before the
Orange County Planning Commission that will be the
first step in placing the maintenance facility at the Act V
lot. The next evening, October 23rd, there will be a
similar hearing on this same issue before the Laguna
Beach Design Review Board at the Laguna Beach City
Hall.
I believe these two hearings are important to
Laguna Beach. They will help us get more and
more well placed parking, and they will help us
to replace the maintenance facility which is in
bad need of replacement. I hope to see you at the
hearings.
That old computer or television set that you no longer
want can contain up to 6 pounds of environmentally
unfriendly metals and chemicals.
Those old paint cans rusting in your garage contain
things that should not go into landfills.
Maybe you are tempted to find a place to put them just
to be rid of them.
Avoid that temptation. Now there’s an easy answer!
The City of Laguna Beach contracts with Curbside,
Inc., to pick up electronics equipment and
miscellaneous liquid waste products such as oil, oil
filters, batteries, paint, pesticides, cleaning fluids,
flammable fluids, etc. If you have items such as these
for pickup, call Curbside at (800) 449-7587 to schedule
pickup. Curbside will drop off a plastic container in
which to place unwanted materials.
This is an environmentally friendly way to get rid of
that environmentally unfriendly household hazardous
waste that has been cluttering your garage, and best of
all, there is no extra charge for this service for Laguna
Beach residential trash pickup customers.
