Narrowed street concerns church neighbors, council

Barbara Diamond

City officials came down on the side of the angles Tuesday in the

controversial issue of diagonal parking in front of St. Catherine of

Siena Catholic Church and an adjacent property.

The council voted unanimously to send the issue of the diagonal

parking in front of the church to the Parking, Traffic and

Circulation Committee to seek ways to reduce the encroachment into

the street, which narrows the two-way traffic lanes to 16 feet. The

council approved diagonal parking in front of the nearby Laguna Beach

County Water District, but eliminated a five-foot wide sidewalk in

the proposal.

“I am befuddled how we came up with a narrower street in front of

the church,” Lombardy Lane resident Linda Leahy said.

However, the only issue before the council Tuesday was the parking

in front of the water district property, which needed to be approved

for the church to begin regular occupancy in two weeks.

“This was set up to be more uniform,” church spokesman Robert

Lawson said.

Neighbors did not object, as long as a sidewalk was not installed

that would push the spaces farther into traffic lanes.

It was the narrowing of Temple Terrace in front of the church that

sparked their concern.

“Somebody was asleep at the wheel,” Anita Street resident Tom

Fairbanks said.

The leaner, meaner street section is the result of the

installation of a 5-foot-wide sidewalk that complies with the

Americans with Disabilities Act and buffers the building from the

landscaped diagonal parking spaces that replaced the parallel spaces

formerly in front of the church.

Design meetings were not temperate, but focused on size, setbacks

and landscaping.

“The plans for parking remained constant and the parking was built

according to the stamped plans,” City Manager Ken Frank said. “But

everyone agrees it is too narrow.”

Councilwoman Toni Iseman said making the 45-degree angle of the

spaces more acute would reduce the intrusion into the street, which

is not up to code under the present striping arrangement. The council

asked the parking commission to look at the geometry and any other

means to ameliorate the congestion.

Other remedial options suggested by Frank included moving the

curbs back 12 inches to perhaps 18 inches in front of homes on the

opposite side of the street.

One of the homeowners, Carol Reynolds, said she was told she had

to maintain 18 feet from the Temple Terrace centerline when she

wanted to add 150 square feet to her home.

“Church parking, as of now, has five feet between the ends of the

cars and the center line,” Reynolds said. “Eighteen feet was never

said to be discretionary when I was put through hoops.

“I feel I was gypped.”

Frank said the easiest solution would be to remove five parallel

parking spaces in front of the homes opposite the church, but he did

not recommend that solution and it had no supporters on the council.

“We’ve made a mess of this,” City Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman

said. “We had a street we could travel on and now we can’t. And we

are talking about taking spaces away from residents and putting trees

in the street.”

Frank said the trees are already in place, but parishioners would

be encouraged to park only compact vehicles in front of the church

and leave larger vehicles in front of the water district property.

Leahy said she never heard anything about narrowing the street

during Planning Commission and Design Review Board meetings on the

church alterations and additions or she would have opposed it.

“The original proposal was roughly to renovate -- earthquake-proof

and add additional meeting rooms on the property,” neighbor Bonnie

Stormont said. “By adding meeting rooms, the parking problem would

naturally be exacerbated.

“I do not believe this problem was initially addressed.”

Staff hand-delivered meeting notices to residents of the area to

ensure they were informed.

Stormont said the notices gave the neighbors little time to absorb

the information and some of it was already outdated.

“The noticing I received on [June 29] states that the centerline

will be removed -- that happened two or three weeks ago,” Stormont

said. “Reducing the size of by-passing traffic lanes is not a good or

safe idea.”

According to a staff report, under the worst possible combination

of conditions, one vehicle approaching another from the opposite

direction might need to stop to allow the other to pass.

A staff report claimed that angled parking would be used mostly on

Sundays, when commuter traffic on Temple Terrace is at a minimum and

the less-than-desirable condition would not be problematic.

“As far back as I can remember, the church has held a mass at 8

a.m. on weekdays when we have commuter traffic from Bluebird Canyon

and Arch Beach Heights,” Stormont said. “During the school year, we

had at least five school buses using that route, not to mention

police and fire to service the aforementioned areas.

“I believe that you [the council] need to rethink the parking in

front of the church, which has created this whole situation. Perhaps

the church should be asked to replace diagonal parking with parallel

parking to allow proper traffic circulation and parking on both sides

of the street, as has been allowed for a great number of years

heretofore.”

Parking was an issue from the get-go of the church renovation,

designed by an out-of-town architect to add meeting rooms.

“It is my understanding that the Planning Commission and the

Design Review Board had no choice in the parking location or quantity

because the church was already there and the sanctuary was not going

to be made larger,” Design Review Board member Steve Kawaratani said.

“A previous design by a local architect put additional parking in the

rear of the church, which was the solution preferred by DRB and the

neighbors.”

A city policy stipulates that church ancillary activities do not

require additional parking, based, Development Director John

Montgomery said, on council action during a discussion of a proposed

amendment to the city parking code. The code does require one parking

space for every three to five fixed seats or 35 square feet in an

assembly area, whichever is more restrictive.

Kawaratani also said church officials stipulated that meetings,

which would presumably add traffic, would not be held during

services.

“It is my understanding that if the application states specific

times for ancillary activities and the activities are being held at

other than specified times or at the same time as services, the

conditional-use permit could be reviewed,” Planning Commissioner Norm

Grossman said.

Parking committee member Carolyn Wood said the committee was told

the angled parking was legal.

“We had no idea it would encroach,” Reynolds said. “If something

is going to extend into the city right-of-way it impacts the

neighborhood and the people going to church. It requires some

mitigation.”

As of Tuesday, the committee was back in the driver’s seat.

QUESTION

Is it fair for religious institutions to be exempt from parking

requirements imposed on businesses? Write us at P.O. Box 248, Laguna

Beach, CA, 92652, e-mail us at [email protected] or fax us

at 494-8979. Please give your name and tell us your home address and

phone number for verification purposes only.