June 23, 2026
Re: Design Review Efficiency Ordinance
City Council:
Thanks to you and the staff for all the fine-tuning and changes to the draft since the last meeting.
I am still concerned about the growing role of Administrative Design Review and how this process will function.
Eliminating public hearings As proposed, failure by a person to request a public hearing will result in an automatic approval. This provision should be deleted from the ordinance. The proposed ordinance provides that hearings have to be requested by anyone with concerns within 15 days of date of mailing or the project will be approved with no hearing. Allowing for mail delivery time which is not reliable, that can mean ten days or less to respond and this doesn't take into account that vacations away from home typically last for two weeks. If someone does request a hearing then a hearing date must be set and the noticing repeated. It seems that it would be more efficient and fair to continue with the present system which allows for more time for neighbors to respond and would not require repeat noticing.
Noticing The ordinance assumes that members of the public who live within the 300’ noticing area are the only relevant parties to notice, and they are the only ones who can appeal. We should consider that there are items of general public interest that may surface as part of project review, especially related to public works projects, public views, tree protection and historic preservation. The ordinance should provide for broader noticing and rights to appeal to protect community features of public interest.
Public notices should be provided on the city’s website. (Add to Section 25.05.040 (B)(3)(b)ii.) Appeals and Referrals. While Section 10 25.05.070 (B) provides for appeal of Community Development Director decisions to the Planning Commission or Design Review Board, Section 5
25.05.040(B)(3)(b)(i) dealing with noticing states that Admin DR projects are appealable to the City Council. Which is it? This appeal process needs to be refined. Clarifying this interim step involves references in several sections of the proposed ordinance. 25.05.040(B)(3)(b)(iv) and
25.05.040(B)(3)(c)(ii). This spells out the actions the appeal officer can take. It should include provisions for the Administrative Hearing Officer to forward a disputed project to the Design Review Board or the Planning Commission. This is a clear and proven process. It doesn’t involve expensive appeals or the need for disputing the decision that the Hearing Officer made. It just involves a considered review by five citizens (DRB or PC) who can resolve the matter. Consider this wording:
“After consideration of all testimony and evidence presented at the public hearing and the Design Review Findings specified in subsection (l) of this section, the Director of Community Development or his or her designee shall determine whether items raised by the public testimony and the applicant have been resolved. In that case he or she can either approve, or conditionally approve, the application in writing. If unresolved items remain, the Director of Community Development or his or her designee shall refer the project to the appropriate hearing body, the Planning Commission or the Design Review Board or deny the project. An appeal of a decision on an administrative design review application is subject to the provisions of Section 25.05.070 and Section 25.07.016 when a coastal development permit is required and may also be appealed to the Planning Commission or Design Review Board at no cost.”
Landscaping Exempt from Design Review (o) and (p) and (iii) Landscaping that does not exceed 16 feet in height. The landscape plans should not be exempt just based on height limits. This issue also surfaces in Section 22 25.13.040 (E) Landscaping. It provides that trees cannot exceed 4’ in the front yard, or 6’ in the rear yard, or 15’ within the buildable area. Provisions to allow trees at normal heights should be provided in order to maintain our city’s landscape. Can a provision for discretionary tree approvals be included? Section 25 25.45.010 (O) limits the offer or open space easement to 21 years. These easement offers should be in perpetuity, or automatically renewed or extended.
Section 45 25.45.010 (C) (2) Historic Resource Assessment report should read:“The Community Development Director may require a historic resource assessment report paid for by the applicant, with the consultant chosen by the city, to be prepared prior to the review of the project to evaluate the impacts of the project on the historic resource.”
Section 47 Pedestrian entry features needs to clarify that the height of 8’ for the pedestrian entry feature applies to the gate posts and overhead beam or arch way. The gate itself should be the same as the fence height, ie. 4’ for the front yard. The resulting entry feature should be similar to the example in the zoning code. Instead there has been a misinterpretation of the code and we see many tall gates, up to the 8’ limit that is supposed to be for the arch way, not the gate. The intent of this portion of the code was to give opportunities to add welcoming gateways in the front yard setback. Installing the tall gates creates a barrier, not a welcoming addition. Add item “(d) The maximum height of the gate portion of the entry feature shall not exceed 4’ with 3’ transitions per the example.”
Section 50 Luminous tube signs. The wording “Except for luminous tube signs, signs may be eligible for administrative review…” implies that luminous tube signs are allowed by some other process. The ordinance should be clear that luminous tube signs are not allowed.
Please consider these comments and ask staff to revise the ordinance.
Ann Christoph
Fellow, American Society of Landscape Architects
California State License # 1439
June 22, 2026
To preserve and enhance the unique village character of Laguna Beach Honorable Mark Orgill and City Council RE: DRB EFFICIENCY ORDINANCE Village Laguna applauds the changes made to Sec4on 22 incen4vizing smaller dwellings and ADU’s with a scalable FAR ra4o and square footage limita4on. Appropriately sized homes will solve many issues: view, privacy, affordability, and hillside preserva4on. We appreciate the planning staff incorpora4ng these limita4ons into the DRB streamline process and for conferring with neighborhoods to respond to concerns about specific planning provisions.
Con4nuing our par4cipa4on in this process, we recommend addi4onal amendments to the ordinance as follows:
AdministraAve Design Review: We understand the city’s efforts to reduce workloads and simplify the process but there are key revisions to the process that are problema4c for public input.
NoAces: A 15-day period for no4ces is too brief for residents to have any meaningful involvement and the provision that projects will be approved unless a recipient of a no4ce requests a public hearing does not recognize typical responses to no4ces received from the city. A simpler solu4on would be to hold the hearing as no4ced. If there are no objec4ons the project would be approved at that 4me. No4ces of Administra4ve Design Review cases should be posted on the city’s website at the same 4me as they are mailed out to those in the no4cing area.
Appeals and Referrals The possibility of an Administra4ve Hearing Officer’s referral of an unresolved case to DRB or Planning Commission without requiring an appeal should be spelled out and we suggest clarifying this interim step. See A9achment. The Design Review Board or Planning Commission could resolve most issues, avoiding an appeal to City Council. Requiring an expensive and involved appeal process is onerous and unnecessary.
There is a conflict between 25.05.040(B)(3)(b) i 3 which says that Administra4ve Design Review projects are appealable to the City Council and 25.05.070 (B) (1) (i) that says that decisions on ministerial permits may be appealed to the Planning Commission or Design Review Board. The A9achment presents a par4al resolu4on of this conflict.
June 22, 2026
SecAon 5 Landscaping: The height of plan4ngs should not be the only considera4on in exemp4ng landscape plans from Design Review. The landscape guidelines of the “Landscape and Scenic Highways Resource Document” should be considered. We should not be encouraging landscape plans without trees. They are important components of village character and it would be preferable not to exempt any landscape plans from discre4onary review if encouraging treeless landscapes is the only non-discre4onary alterna4ve.
SecAon 22. Landscaping: It provides that trees cannot exceed 4’ in the front yard, 6’ in the rear yard, 15’ within the buildable area. (Can 4’ tall plants really be considered trees?) Provisions to allow trees at normal heights need to be provided in order to maintain our city’s landscape.
General Plan, SecAon 23: Why is the language of requiring conformance with the city’s General Plan deleted? Projects SHOULD BE in conformance with the general plan with par4cular emphasis on the open space and conserva4on element.
SecAon 25: This limits the offer of open space easement to 21 years. These easement offers should be in perpetuity, or automa4cally renewed or extended as the language in our General Plan says “offer a permanent open space easement.” NOT 21 years.
Historic Resources, SecAon 45: Historic Resource Assessment report should read: “The Community Development Director may require a historic resource assessment report paid for by the applicant, with the consultant chosen by the city, to be prepared prior to the review of the project to evaluate the impacts of the project on the historic resource.” Luminous Tube Signs, SecAon 50 We support the city’s sign ordinance that forbids internally lighted signs, including neon-type (now called Luminous Tube). There should be no doubt that the ordinance con4nues these prohibi4ons, as recommended by the Planning Commission.
Respecfully,
Merrill Anderson
President Village Laguna, Inc.
June 22, 2026
A#achment – Administra0ve Design Review
Suggested Copy for Sec>on 25.05.040(B)(3)(c)(ii) which spells out the ac>ons the appeal officer can take:
Aher considera4on of all tes4mony and evidence presented at the public hearing and the Design Review Findings specified in subsec4on (l) of this sec4on, the Director of Community Development or his or her designee shall determine whether items raised by the public tes4mony and the applicant have been resolved. In that case he or she can either approve, or condi4onally approve, the applica4on in wri4ng. If unresolved items remain, the Director of Community Development or his or her designee shall refer the project to the appropriate hearing body, the Planning Commission or the Design Review Board or deny the project. An appeal of a decision on an administra4ve design review applica4on is subject to the provisions of Sec4on 25.05.070 and Sec4on 25.07.016 when a coastal development permit is required and may also be appealed to the Planning Commission or Design Review Board at no cost.