SOUNDING OFF:Senior center project is essential

Last June, the City Council voted 4 to 0 to build a 19,000-square-foot senior/community center on the Third Street site the city purchased almost five years ago for this purpose. Soon, the council-approved design will go before the planning commission. Barring last-minute surprises, groundbreaking will take place next April and in late 2008, the Susi Q Senior Center will — at long last — be open.

The Susi Q has already survived one last-minute surprise: the June 2005 Bluebird Canyon landslides. Even though it meant postponing our plans for a year and the loss of $250,000 in grants, it was a delay Laguna Beach seniors willingly supported to help our neighbors.

Now there are more last-minute surprises: the eleventh hour appearance of the naysayers. For various reasons, a handful of vocal critics have decided that the senior/community center — which has been in the planning stages for years, has the support of all our elected officials and candidates for the City Council, and has already generated close to $2 million in private financial support — should be stopped.

Their criticisms fall into various categories.

The naysayers say the Susi Q is too small for the needs of seniors. The new senior/community center will have 8,000 square feet for the exclusive use of seniors, plus a 7,500-square-foot community center available to seniors as well as the rest of the community. The site also will have thousands of square feet of landscaped outdoor space.

Laguna Beach Seniors has worked closely with the staff at LPA, the project’s architects, to make the Susi Q a flexible, functional, warm, and welcoming space. We are delighted with the results.

The naysayers say the Susi Q and community center will lack fresh air and sunlight. LPA also has a first-class reputation for designing environmentally-friendly public projects.

The entire front of the building will consist of glass doors and windows that flood the interior with sunlight and fresh air. Because the project is built into a steep hillside, the back rooms have skylights rather than windows and depend on state-of-the-art fresh-air exchange systems. These rooms also open onto a sun-drenched breezeway that spans almost the entire project.

The naysayers say there are better locations for the senior/community center. The Third Street site was chosen years ago after an extensive review of all alternatives, including the Riddle Field site, which was rejected because it is in a flood plain.

The new Susi Q will be in the heart of the town we love. It will have 70-plus much-needed parking spaces on site including ample handicap parking adjacent to a wheelchair-accessible elevator, and a separate passenger-discharge lane off Third Street. For the first time in our 35-year history, we will have a space that is fully accessible by everyone we serve.

The existing houses on the Third Street site must be preserved. Use of the existing structures for a senior center simply does not meet the needs of seniors. But what surprises me is the last-minute nature of these appeals for preservation. Where have these folks been?

The City acquired this land and announced its plans years ago. There have been numerous public forums and City Council votes on the project as it wended its way through the approval process.

Which brings me to what the naysayers are not saying but needs to be said:

To delay the Susi Q could kill it. The capital campaign has already lost $250,000 in grants previously approved. Our major donors have pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of a plan and a timetable for the Susi Q. A capital campaign cannot go on indefinitely. If we do not break ground in April, 2007, as scheduled, that could well be the end of the Susi Q.

That is why Laguna Beach seniors urges the planning commission to approve the senior/community center project. We also are counting on our City Council and candidates to keep the commitment they have made to break ground in April. Meanwhile, Laguna Beach Seniors will continue to move forward with a project that benefits everyone in our community.

We are close to the end of a long road. We need and appreciate your support in getting all the way home.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Is the issue of windows in exercise rooms important enough to stop development of the Senior/Community Center? Write us at P.O. Box 248, Laguna Beach, CA, 92652, e-mail us at [email protected] or fax us at 494-8979. Please give your name and tell us your home address and phone number for verification purposes only.