Residents say El Niguel Country Club use of Paseo del Niguel easement violates fire code, request CEQA review

Several residents of the Paseo streets neighborhood told the Laguna Niguel City Council on Oct. 21 that commercial and construction traffic for a turf project at El Niguel Country Club is using a private residential easement that they say fails to meet minimum fire-access widths and should not have been cleared under a categorical CEQA exemption.

The complaints, delivered during the public-comment period, centered on repeated use of a narrow, enclosed easement for employee and vendor access and on what speakers said was a failure by city staff and the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) to make critical fire-safety reports public. “Our streets are not against the project. What we're against is the illegal use of a easement that's been in use for years, which is breaking the law,” said Tisha Holbert, who identified herself as representing the Paseo Street Safety Coalition.

The residents asked the council to reexamine the project’s CEQA exemption, to release fire authority documentation the speakers said has been withheld, and to suspend construction access through the easement until its compliance is verified in writing by OCFA. “Construction vehicles, including dump trucks, will use the Paseo Del Noguel easement,” Patty Williams told the council, reading from the city’s own planning-commission staff report. “That’s not routine employee traffic. That’s construction traffic through a private sub‑10 foot residential easement located in a high fire hazard severity zone.”

Why this matters: the speakers said the corridor measures roughly 9 feet, 8 inches at its narrowest point and is enclosed by walls, and they cited California Fire Code provisions requiring substantially wider unobstructed widths for fire and commercial access. They also cited Laguna Niguel’s 2023 ordinance that raises the minimum to 24 feet for certain access points. “Any fire access or commercial vehicle route must have a minimum 20 feet unobstructed width. And under Laguna Niguel ordinance 2023-219, that minimum is 24 feet,” Nancy Williams said.

Speakers pointed to multiple procedural concerns. Holbert said a fire-safety report (identified in the meeting as SR277407) was not released to the public and that city staff told the planning commission OCFA had approved plans and that CEQA concerns were vetted — statements she called false. Linda Sukut urged enforcement and address corrections after saying her property was misidentified in official maps as part of the golf course’s maintenance yard for more than a year, an error she said affected her fire‑zone classification.

What the speakers asked the council to do: 1) reexamine the planning commission’s CEQA exemption determination for the turf project; 2) release SR277407 and related OCFA reports (with redaction where appropriate) under the California Public Records Act; and 3) suspend any construction or commercial vehicle access through the private easement until the corridor is documented as compliant with applicable fire-code provisions by OCFA.

City response in the meeting: the comments occurred during public comment; no council action or vote on the requests was recorded during the Oct. 21 meeting. Planning staff and the city’s community development director were referenced by speakers, but no council direction to staff or OCFA was shown on the record that evening.

Background and context: speakers repeatedly referenced the California Fire Code (CFC) provisions they said set minimum access widths, Laguna Niguel Ordinance 2023-219, and the California Public Records Act (Gov. Code §6253) in arguing both procedural and safety problems. They also cited the planning-commission staff report’s language that construction access and haul trucks would use the existing access easement and a traffic assessment that estimated up to 36 haul trips during a two-week demolition period.

Next steps noted by residents: speakers requested written confirmation from OCFA verifying the access corridor’s compliance and asked the council to withhold any construction access pending correction. The meeting transcript does not record subsequent staff commitments or written directions from the council on those requests.