Vision Laguna 2030

By Jane H. Egly

We have a plan to work toward the solution of our problems. It is the Vision Laguna 2030

The City of Laguna Beach spent over $200,000 and more than 2000 Lagunans donated their energy, talents and tens of thousands of hours to create the Vision Laguna 2030 Strategic Plan. This plan speaks to resolving Lagunaıs parking and congestion problems, design review issues, environmental concerns, as well as to promoting our townıs arts heritage and economic health.

Unlike the current Council majority, I trust Lagunans to know what they want for our town. I will implement the Vision. This resource is too valuable to waste.

VISION LAGUNA 2030. Visioning is the process by which a community comes together to create a picture of the place it wants to be in the future. Strategic planning is the process by which the community creates a blueprint for getting there.

In the spring of 1999, the Laguna Beach City Council appointed a ten-member steering committee to design and carry out a community visioning and strategic planning process. The Steering Committee set about designing a visioning process that would be fair and comprehensive, involve maximum citizen participation, employ accurate empirical data, and embody the unique characteristics of Laguna Beach and its people. Committee members anticipated a process that would result in a high quality strategic plan that recommended specific, achievable actions for realizing the future as it has been envisioned.

Phase I of the Visioning process involved gathering a database. The Steering Committee worked with City staff and private consultants to compile factual information about Laguna Beach and adjacent communities. These findings were published in April 2000 in a booklet entitled, Laguna Beach at a Glance that was made available to the public.

In Phase II of the Visioning process, the goal was to identify a shared vision. Through a variety of citywide events, individual questionnaires and community outreach programs, everyone in town was invited to participate in identifying Laguna Beachıs assets, challenges, and opportunities.

When Lagunans were asked to identify what is right about our community, we confirmed that we cherish the spectacular environment that surrounds us, the charm and human scale that characterize our pedestrian-friendly downtown, the diversity of our population and distinctive neighborhoods, and our heritage in the arts.

When discussion turned to the challenges facing Laguna Beach, losing the scale and texture of our individual neighborhoods and commercial centers were concerns. Escalating real estate values bring redevelopment with larger, grander structures that replace older buildings, increase structural density and block views as well as increasing pressure for developing our town's remaining open hillsides; rapidly rising values also mean that many of our artists, seniors teachers, city workers, service industry employees,and our children can no longer find homes in town.

Lagunans recognized the need to respond to the effects of regional growth and aging infrastructures: to stop the pollution that threatens our air, ocean, and beaches, to balance residential needs and visitor use, and to control traffic circulation and parking congestion.

We also affirmed our commitment to effective emergency planning, increased support for the arts, expanded community programs and services for local youth, continued educational excellence and outreach, enhanced resources for seniors, and a vibrant local economy. Finally we sought ways to build community cohesion and resolve the inevitable conflicts that arise within a community of spirited, action-oriented individuals.

Seven planning themes emerged from the Phase II activities: Community Character­People, Community Character­Place, Resident and Visitor Mobility, Environmental Responsibility, Arts and Culture, Economic Sustainability, and Governance and Civic Participation. A booklet describing Phase IIıs process and discoveries was published in November 2000. Each participant in the next phase would receive a copy of this booklet.

During Phase III, the strategic planning phase, participants organized into strategy teams with each team focusing on one of the seven planning themes listed above. Two facilitators, a recording secretary and a representative from the Steering committee (all local volunteers) assisted each team. These teams met frequently during the spring of 2001 to develop their individual action plans. Then all the groups came together at four Saturday conventions to share their deliberations with and receive input from the other strategy teams. A professional facilitator directed these Saturday conventions. A final report, Vision Laguna 2030 Final Report and Strategic Plan included a description of the process, a statement of the goals developed by the action teams, and recommendations for implementation. This report was published in booklet form in December 2001.

The implementation plan called for involvement by both the citizens and the City of Laguna. Citizens would provide their energy and commitment to move projects forward, and the City Council would ensure that the Vision 2030 recommendations became an integral part of the Cityıs planning process and that future decisions would be measured against these Vision recommendations.

Vision Laguna 2030 involved more than 2,000 Laguna residents and tens ofthousands of resident hours over two and a half years at a cost of around $200,000.

Unfortunately, between the initiation of the Vision process in spring, 1999 and the appeal to the City Council in late fall 2002 to institute implementation, elections had occurred and the three newest Council members did not share in a commitment to citizen-based planning. The new Council accepted the Vision report, voted to post the final document on the City Website, and decided to appoint ³lead² organizations from among local community groups to work on achieving the goals of the various strategy groups.

However, the Council chose not to establish an implementation committee as recommended by the report, did not authorize city-wide distribution of the final report as had been planned or even make the published report available to those who had participated in the Vision process, and did not commit the City to use the Vision findings as guidelines for decision making.

Furthermore, in complete opposition to the spirit of the Vision process, Council members chose the "lead" groups based on politics, entitling some groups and excluding others. In at least two Council actions, the design of the traffic study commissioned in March 2003 (recently abandoned because of poor design of the study) and the push to relocate the Corporate Yard to Act V, the Council majority has acted in direct opposition to recommendations fromVision Strategy groups.