Waves over art

One of Laguna’s most noted surfing beaches is awaiting its makeover.

Brooks Street beach — scene of one of the oldest continual surfing competitions — will be a topic at Monday’s Arts Commission meeting, where additional public comment will be sought about a proposed art competition at the site.

The commission last month put a hold on the artist competition, which coincides with the redesign of the site as a whole, including replacement of the beach access stairs.

The commission is asking the public which design elements would be most appropriate for the site. Current plans call for an artist-designed railing and bench that would honor Brooks Street’s surfing legacy. A competing idea calls for sculptures.

Proposed overall site designs for the beach area have been developed with the Laguna Beach Beautification Council, which is working on a master plan for the improvement of all of Laguna’s street ends, which total between 24 and 30.

“The organization has done a lot of wonderful things for the community at very little cost,” said Beautification Council President Ora Sterling. She described trees that were planted in Heisler Park and along Third Street, and the preservation of trees throughout Laguna Canyon.

At Brooks Street, city officials and the community have been working since July 2003 to come up with a satisfactory plan, Steve May, director of public works, said.

“We’ve been going back and forth with different ideas,” May said. “I’m guessing we’ll have a preliminary design in three months.”

The city’s CIP for 2005-06 allocated $110,000 for the stair replacement and $20,000 for landscaping improvements at the site.

The Arts Commission has budgeted $55,000 for artwork at the site, funds coming from the city’s hotel bed tax and other sources.

“It’s a very popular street end, especially with the surf competition,” said Kimberly Stuart of Stuart Architecture, which had been involved with developing analysis and schematic plans for the area from the curb at the street end to Coast Highway. She said SWA Group has been working on landscape architecture.

The stairs are in need of replacement, as a drop-off occurs at the end of the existing stairs during times of low sand level, Stuart said.

Architect Morris Skenderian had developed plans for the area from the curb to the water, including realigning the stairs and creating a stadium-style seating area, but May said the firm is not working on the design now, given a property owner’s objection.

“The stairs don’t go all the way down to the rocks, so we want to make them a little lower,” May explained. “We wanted to turn them a different direction, but it turns out that one of the property owners objected to that — the new configuration would have crossed under their property — so we’re looking at going back to the old concept.”

Local organizations like the Surfrider Foundation have also been involved in the site redesign.

“From Surfrider’s perspective, we are all for improving the beach access, and at the same time we want to help ensure that that access minimizes any environmental impact. We want to make sure that they come up with something that’s environmentally benign,” said Chad Nelson, environmental director for Surfrider.

“Brooks Street has a really important historical place in surfing nationally,” he added. “There’s a lot of pride locally, a neat historical lineage of surfers who competed there. We hope the arts will celebrate that it’s a special place for surfing.”

“It’s just wonderful that all of these organizations are getting together and trying to improve something,” Sterling said. “Anything they can do at Brooks Street will be a huge improvement.”

The Arts Commission first proposed a competition to add art to the site in April.

At its Aug. 15 meeting, the Arts Commission heard an alternative proposal from Bruce Hopping of the Kalos Kagathos Foundation, a youth surfing organization, that two life-sized sculptures by Laguna College alumni Alfred Paredes be installed at the site’s proposed viewing platform.

“Laguna Beach has no sculp- ture dedicated to the longest continuous open-surfing contest in the world,” Hopping said.

Hopping initially sought the City Council’s approval for the sculptures last October and appeared again at the council’s Aug. 1 meeting. He has gathered signatures on petitions to support the proposal.

Many of the petition’s signers were youths who use the beach to surf and skim, Hopping, a longtime Laguna resident, said. “You’re lucky to get one to sign,” he said. “I had a father run shotgun with them to get these signatures.”

A work depicting surfers previously commissioned by the foundation stands at the entrance to the Huntington Beach Public Beach Park Entrance.

The Arts Commission has composed draft art competition guidelines, but is seeking additional response from the community at its 5 p.m. Monday meeting, held in council chambers.