Should Laguna's Planning Commission and DRB Be Publicly Elected?

Laguna Beach Planning Commission and Design Review Board: Could Making Them Elected District Seats Be Part Of The Answer?

As a 40-year Laguna Beach resident and builder and as an environmental consultant for almost 15 years, I hear a lot of the frustration surrounding two of our standing bodies: The Planning Commission (PC) and the Design Review Board (DRB). 

Frequently I get asked questions about how I would change Laguna Beach City Hall regarding these two entities.

Historically, we’re all aware of the nasty and acrimonious confrontations at our DRB meetings. This usually pits neighbor-against-neighbor. In some cases, these skirmishes become plural, and the polarized parties pool their funds, then round up and hire the usual suspects: land use attorneys, entire consultant food chains and even local non-governmental organization representative entourages who lobby everyone behind the scenes. A lot of freebie meals and early-bird drinks consumed behind the scenes to grease the wheel.

All perfectly legal, and don’t get me wrong, I sometimes make a few bucks in the background myself—but at times, it’s definitely overkill. Yes, there was a DRB task force created some time ago that was intended to lower the venomous rhetoric and somehow find alternatives or alterations that could streamline the process. Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem to have affected the living Heaven (if your side wins) or Hell (if you lose) that DRB exudes. Perception outstrips reality every time, that’s a fact ingrained into our species DNA.

In some cases, the fracas clogs up the council chamber with entire suit-and-tie consulting staffs (pro and/or con). Often, to many minds present, the advisory train slows down the process. They’re brought in as interventionists, don’t actually live in the proposed project area, or even in Laguna for that matter. These consultants, along with our own city staff—using zoning, building codes/ordinances, water quality, lighting, noise, hydrology and landscape terminologies, etc. etc.—invoke compliance acronyms and phrases that boggle even bright people in attendance tracking the agenda package.

Occasionally, this also occurs at our Planning Commission (PC) hearings. Because they’re usually looking at commercial enterprises, added into the mix are Conditional Use Permits, even the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Residential sub-divisions are also part of the PC domain, and usually require CEQA analyses, studies and supporting documents. That gets expensive fast, so confrontations are more like prolonged, protracted wars which only the wealthy can afford.

Would creating five (5) regional districts and making the PC and DRB publicly elected positions solve some of these problems? Is part of the inherent difficulty due to the fact that our city council appoints them in the first place? Are some of the DRB and PC decisions a result of looking over their collective shoulders in uncertainty, trying to please the three council members who have the power of reappointment when they should be objective?

Would representatives that actually live or have a resident-serving business in proximity remove some of those clouds of doubt that hover constantly? Is part of the problem that we have no term limits—not for council members or for their appointed DRB and PC favorites?

Look at it as prioritizing triage—a winnowing down of bothersome nuisance issues, or arbitrated mitigations achieved at a smaller community level. A project within the designated district that doesn’t have adequate notification or legal distance mailings could still get focused local attention. Everyone possibly affected could still become engaged, the project critiqued thoroughly if the district rep hit his/her telephone tree. District reps could hold discussions in their homes or in agreed-upon venues that are more casual, less threatening, and more amenable to cessation of anger—and at hours more flexible for dialogue.

District reps could also educate and many times at least partially resolve legitimate (but poorly understood) nuances at this level far easier than at public hearings. It has the potential to reach consensus somewhere else than bitter shouting matches during televised cable hearings.

Granted, the lines or districts I'm throwing out might be slightly arbitrary, but that shouldn’t hinder the progression of an interesting idea. I’ll suggest five, knowing that readers will probably have their own take on the lines.

[NOTE: I think that folks on the slopes have common unique issues due to topography (terrain) and proximity to wilderness habitat.]

• District 1: North Laguna
• District 2: Downtown/Laguna Canyon
• District 3: Cleo to Nyes Place
• District 4: The Highlands (Skyline, Temple Hills, Upper Bluebird, Top-of-the-World, Arch Beach Heights, etc.)
• District 5: South Laguna

The biggest hurdle would be the voluntary abandonment of control by the city council, these “anointments” being part and parcel of the inculcated political patronage system. Yet these two bodies determine a lot of both where we are and where we’re headed as a city. Residents deserve finite local review, attempting conflict resolution and distinct accounting. Council members, even if they only serve one term, can have long-lasting impacts via appointments that should be tempered.

Right now, neither the DRB or the PC is being held directly accountable to anyone other than who appointed them, a sort of bureaucratic incest and reward system. In my suggested system, they’d be held directly responsible by their true constituents—the people they live and work and interact with every day. To assure turnover and curtail mischief, term limits and potential recalls would be necessary elements.

Perhaps only a public referendum could wrest the wheel away from and forcibly strip the reins of the city's present feudal system. And before anyone asks, yes, the initiative would state that district reps need to be paid a little more. The city would save a great deal of funds at the back end, so there’s a pragmatic funding tradeoff. Plus less internecine drama and fewer destructive Hatfields-versus-McCoys conflicts in our lives.

About 100 years ago, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau said: “War is too important to be left to the generals.” I think that the DRB and PC are too important to be left to politicians—especially ones with no term limits themselves.