Laguna Beach staff say planning backlog cut in half; council directs urgency ordinance process

City Manager Dave Kiff said Laguna Beach has reduced a community development backlog from 72 projects to 47 and cut average internal turnaround on plan checks from about 57 days to roughly 14 days, crediting staff reforms and new processes.

"We started in August ... we had, 72 projects just pending, which is which is quite a few pending and and pending for review," Kiff said on the Fair Game Laguna Beach podcast. He told host Tom Johnson the city also has more active applications than it did when the effort began — up from 192 to about 276 — and said the department sped reviews even as volume rose.

Mayor Alex Wenagi said the council has asked staff for regular progress reports and on the podcast described a council direction this month to pursue an urgency ordinance aimed at moving some small-scale items from discretionary design review into more objective, administrative review.

"If we get an urgency ordinance, then we could put that into effect immediately and then go through the normal local coastal plan amendment process," Wenagi said. He added the approach would allow the city to pilot changes quickly and later refine them while coordinating with the California Coastal Commission.

Officials described several elements of the reform package discussed with the Planning Commission and Design Review board: reducing discretionary review for minor items (examples cited included paint color or roofing for small projects), introducing clearer objective standards or an "envelope" for smaller builds so applicants know when they qualify for administrative approval, stronger first-round plan checks to eliminate "late hits," and new electronic permitting introduced in January.

Kiff said planners now use an expanded checklist in first plan review to reduce later rounds of comments and called staff turnover a key contributor to past delays. The mayor and city manager both said the goal is to protect Laguna Beach’s neighborhood character and coastal resources while making the permit process more predictable and less time-consuming for homeowners and designers.

Council direction and next steps: the council voted at its recent meeting to give staff direction on the urgency ordinance; staff will present the proposed text to the Planning Commission for feedback and seek early outreach with the California Coastal Commission to determine whether the changes can be processed as an urgency ordinance or must proceed as a regular ordinance that requires a local coastal program amendment.

The discussion on the podcast did not include a formal council vote adopting an ordinance; it recorded staff-reported performance metrics, council direction to prepare ordinance language, and planned referrals to the Planning Commission and Coastal Commission for review.

City officials said they will report the monthly progress metrics to the council at an upcoming meeting.