Karen Martin

Urban planner

Laguna Beach Resident Since 1986

Small Business Owner

1. Fix the fundamentals

The General Plan should express the community’s long-term vision. The Zoning Code should implement that vision. The Local Coastal Program should protect coastal resources and guide development in the coastal zone. When these documents are outdated, internally inconsistent, or in conflict with one another, residents, applicants, neighbors, staff, and decision-makers face confusion and unnecessary conflict.

Laguna Beach needs a comprehensive public process to update these documents and bring them into alignment. The goal is not more rules for their own sake. The goal is clear, understandable standards that are applied consistently to everyone.

RESIDENTS FIRST—IN EVERY DECISION

2. Make City Hall easier to understand & participate in

Residents should not need special connections or professional expertise to understand what City Hall is doing. Public records, staff reports, applications, meeting materials, and prior decisions should be easy to locate and search.

The City’s website should make it simple to learn about openings on commissions, boards, and committees; submit an application; follow an issue; participate in a meeting; and review what happened afterward. Public participation should be invited—not buried.

Technology can help, but purchasing another tool is not a substitute for repairing the underlying system. Artificial intelligence should be used responsibly to improve access to records, identify conflicting provisions, and support staff and public understanding. It must operate under clear policies for accuracy, privacy, public records, bias, accountability, and meaningful human review. Technology should strengthen public judgment, not replace it.

3. Put residents first in tourism policy

Laguna Beach is home to about 22,000 residents and receives more than six million visitors each year. That extraordinary imbalance affects residents every day through traffic, parking shortages, crowded beaches, public-safety demands, infrastructure strain, trash, and neighborhood disruption.

I used to visit my local cove and see my neighbors. Today it can be so inundated that I sometimes do not go at all. At peak times, crossing town can take more than an hour.

Tourism is an economic reality, but it should not drive City priorities at the expense of the people who live here. The purpose of tourism policy should be to manage existing impacts—not generate still more demand. We need infrastructure and services capable of handling current visitor levels while protecting residents’ access, mobility, safety, and quality of life.

Tourism-generated revenue should be used first to address tourism-generated costs, including traffic management, parking, beach cleanliness, public safety, infrastructure, and neighborhood protection. When visitor promotion conflicts with resident quality of life, residents must come first.

4. Put residents first in construction, too

The resident-first principle should also guide how Laguna Beach manages construction. Every project brings workers, vehicles, deliveries, heavy equipment, and construction activity into a neighborhood. One project may be manageable. Multiple projects operating at the same time can overwhelm neighborhood streets, consume limited parking, obstruct access, and subject residents to months—or years—of cumulative disruption.

Large excavation projects can require repeated trips by heavy trucks hauling soil through residential streets and Laguna Canyon. Those trips add traffic, create noise and dust, affect pedestrian and roadway safety, and contribute to wear on streets and other public infrastructure. The cost of damage attributable to a private project should not simply be passed on to residents and taxpayers.

A construction permit allows an approved project to proceed. It does not allow a contractor to build in any manner they choose or disregard the effects on surrounding residents.

Construction-management plans should address worker parking, equipment staging, delivery schedules, haul routes, truck loads, roadway conditions, pedestrian safety, emergency access, noise, vibration, dust, and runoff. The City should also consider the cumulative effects of nearby projects instead of reviewing each one in isolation.

City Hall should respond promptly to documented problems, coordinate enforcement across departments, and apply the same rules consistently to every project. Residents should not have to become code-enforcement experts simply to protect their health, homes, ability to work, and quality of life.

5. Preserve local emergency care

Laguna Beach must work urgently with Providence, healthcare providers, regional partners, and state officials to preserve access to 24/7 local emergency care and ambulance-receiving services. Our geography, limited evacuation routes, traffic congestion, aging population, wildfire risk, and the public-safety demands created by millions of annual visitors make timely emergency care essential. Losing the emergency department would place residents at greater risk and weaken the City’s ability to respond to emergencies.

6. Protect Laguna’s trees, charm, and character

Laguna’s trees, beaches, open space, neighborhoods, village scale, and artistic character are not obstacles to progress—they are part of what responsible planning must protect. Development and public projects should respect neighborhood context, environmental resources, public views, infrastructure limits, and the cumulative effects of change.

7. Recognize the people who keep Laguna running

Housing and transportation policy are not abstract. I have watched the people who pour our coffee and serve our meals arrive well before their shifts simply to find a parking space, then walk 20 minutes to work. After serving our community—often for wages that make living in Laguna impossible—they face the drive home through congested Laguna Canyon.

These workers are part of the fabric of Laguna. Our decisions about housing, parking, transportation, and infrastructure should recognize the dignity of their work and the burdens our current system places on them.

That does not mean every housing proposal is right for Laguna. Location, scale, safety, infrastructure, environmental impacts, and neighborhood compatibility still matter. The need is real, and it deserves serious, practical, well-planned solutions.

A practical accessibility commitment

Good government also pays attention to small barriers that have a real effect on daily life. The City should confirm that the Laguna Canyon Dog Park provides at least one properly designated accessible parking space and a safe, accessible route to the entrance. If it does not, that should be corrected. Residents with disabilities should be able to enjoy this community facility with their dogs.