Temple Hills walkway declared private

A strip of land in the Temple Hills neighborhood used informally as a walkway for several years is now officially private property, the Laguna Beach City Council decided Tuesday.

In voting 3 to 1, the council approved a request from residents Doug Cortez and Mike and Stephanie Webster to declare private a 5-foot-wide, 190-foot-long strip of land that stretches from Bayview Place down to Canyon View Drive.

Councilwoman Toni Iseman dissented and Councilman Kelly Boyd recused himself because he lives within 500 feet of the area.

Public testimony swayed both ways on a long-simmering issue that has included proposals for a staircase built between the streets and differing interpretations of whether the land was officially designated as a walkway on county tract maps from the 1920s.

The 5-foot-wide strip runs adjacent to properties owned by Cortez, a member of the city’s View Preservation Committee, and the Websters and covers a below-ground 8-inch-wide city-maintained sewer pipe.

The area is constrained by steep topography, with a severe drop-off of about 10 to 15 feet near Bayview Place, according to a city staff report.

Cortez said he has spent 10 years fighting requests from other residents who favor public access on the strip of land, which they have said keeps children out of harm’s way of moving cars and gives others a more direct route to downtown without driving.

“The original tract maps did not have the word ‘walkway’ on them,” Cortez told the council Tuesday.

In the 1920s, county supervisors designated four “public right-of-ways” to provide abbreviated pedestrian access through the neighborhood, though they were never publicly dedicated, nor has Laguna spent any money maintaining them, the staff report says.

The other three strips of land, still considered public right-of-ways, are located between Temple Hills Drive and Bayview Place, between Buena Vista Way and Coast View Drive, and between Buena Vista Way, Coast View Drive and Temple Hills Drive.

Stephanie Webster disputed the claim that the public uses the area near her house.

“No one has ever walked on the path during the 16 years we have lived in our home,” Webster said.

Resident Lou Novak said he uses two of the four paths every day, and added the goal is creating safer pedestrian mobility throughout Laguna.

“It’s a large network of pathways in place,” Novak said. “They intersect, they connect, and should be connected because they bring you down into the town.

“It’s irresponsible to take the public right-of-ways and give them to individuals until there is a rational plan that serves the greater community.”

In return for the city designating the path private, the property owners agreed to allow city crews access to the sewer line for maintenance.

Also, two parcels will be merged into one, negating the possibility that another house could be built on one plot of land and two on-street parking spaces will be preserved.

“There are tangible public benefits the community is obtaining because of this, with the sewer easements, with the parking, lack of development of another home on another congested street,” Mayor Bob Whalen said. “I don’t view this as precedential for any of the other public ways.”

As part of the vote, Council members Robert Zur Schmiede and Iseman will work with city staff and Temple Hills neighborhood residents on a possible public walkway system in the area.