Another Reprieve for Historic Cottages
Photo by Julie Hagy Another Reprieve for Historic Paul Gonzalez hopes to integrate historic cottages into a live-work project at Big Bend in Laguna Canyon. Three early 1900s-eras cottages exiled to Laguna Canyon and slated for demolition received another 11th-hour reprieve thanks to Laguna Beach resident Paul Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, 51, hopes to incorporate the cottages into live-work units in a redevelopment project called Canyon Lofts, designed for his newly acquired Telonic Berkeley in Laguna Canyon Road at the Big Bend. It's too early to know if Gonzalez' efforts will succeed in securing a permanent home for the displaced historic structures.
The cottages were salvaged two years ago prior to the downtown development of the senior center on Third Street in the hope that someone would make use of them. Boarded up and fenced off, they have been sitting and deteriorating on a three-acre parcel of city land adjacent to Gonzalez's lot since March 2007. With a temporary use permit set to expire June 1 and the bulldozers set to roll, Gonzalez on June 2 sought and won the City Council's permission to forestall demolition again while he attempts to integrate the cottages into his plans. Laguna Beach resident and former mayor Ann Christoph, who was landscaping his property, urged him to step in.
"He has property right next door," says Christoph, "I thought if anybody could do it, he could."
Formerly, the cottages were part of a downtown neighborhood consisting of 18 structural units, six of which were historically rated cottages. Of the historically rated cottages, two were demolished, one was moved to private land in Fullerton and the remaining three sit on city land awaiting their fate. "It's a shame," said Christoph. "The senior center is nice, but the cottages were very nice as well."
That fate must be decided by Aug. 4, the deadline Gonzalez has been given to present his building plans to the city's Community Development Department.
This is not the first plan to repurpose the cottages brought to the development department. "A number of people were interested in the cottages, to take to private property and restore," says Assistant to the City Manager and Director of Community Services, Susan Cannan, "None of the parties followed through on that interest."
According to Cannan, the cottages were approved for an 18-month temporary use permit in March 2007. "There have been a series of continuances of that," she said. "We've done our best to preserve these historical landmarks, but up to this point, nothing has worked out yet."
Gonzalez says his location next to the city land makes him a perfect candidate to preserve them. "This way they don't have to break them all up. It would be like breaking up kids in an orphanage, like breaking up a family," he said.
The cottages range in size from 572 to 910 square feet. "We're going to try to integrate the cottages into a live work project we're working on now," he said, his eyes wandering across an office littered with design sketches.
At the former Telonic Berkeley site, the buildings already on the property are being converted into rentable office space, while the rest of the land, if all goes according to Gonzalez's plans, will be used to create live-work units. According to the city's principal planner, Carolyn Martin, Gonzalez's property is in a zone where live/work complexes are permitted.
Gonzalez is a partner in NAI BT Commercial Real Estate group, located in Santa Rosa. Before his purchase of the Telonic Berkeley land, most of Gonzalez's real-estate work was in Sonoma County. However, Orange County was his launch pad.
Between 1985 and 1990, Gonzalez served as the owner of the former Balboa Beach Clubs in Irvine, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. He left the county in 1990 to work for a Sonoma County real estate developer and established alliances with Orion Partners and Catalyst Commercial Group, Inc, both involved in real estate investment.
In 2005, he purchased a home in Laguna Beach and in September 2007 after purchasing the Telonic Berkeley land made Laguna Beach his permanent residence.
Even as development around the area screeches to a near-halt, Gonzalez says growth will continue in Laguna Beach. "Projects here are less likely to be duplicated, making them more valuable," he said.
In a time when development financing is difficult to come by, Gonzalez is leaning on private capital, small community bank loans and optimism.
And has no worries about finding tenants for the Canyon Lofts project. "It's beautiful here. It's like having Yosemite as your back yard," Gonzalez said.
In order for the cottages to fit into his development scheme, Gonzalez will need an additional half acre, which he plans to ask the city for. A portion of that land is in a flood zone, Martin said, so Gonzalez will have to take that into consideration in designing and presenting his proposal. He is going to also ask for the city's help in re-positioning the cottages and relocation fees. "It's a trade off. We're going to recover our costs of reinstating the cottages, then all the profits from the cottages will go to the city," Gonzalez said.
"It's a very, very easy plan if people understand that there can be a private and public relationship. There has to be a bit of give and take. The goal is to try to work with what's here and not destroy."
