Our Projects
Laguna Beach Mobility
Working Group
Laguna Beach's parking and mobility issues present complex interrelated problems involving traffic, parking, shuttles, bicycles, pedestrians, mobility, financing and leadership. Our working group brings together urban planners, engineers, financial analysts, designers, people who "like to breathe," dreamers, researchers, and visionaries to design solutions and reimagine our community.
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It's not a one-size-fits-all process because it doesn't require a simple, put-a-bow-on-it solution. Our working group includes:
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Working Group
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Discussion Group
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Survey Participants
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Networking
Are you a resident, expert or stakeholder who has an opinion, a contribution, or a vision to share? Get involved!
Local Economic Gardening:
Growth and Sustainability
Economic gardening is an entrepreneurial approach to economic development that seeks to grow the local economy from within. Its premise is that local entrepreneurs create the companies that bring new wealth and economic growth to a region in the form of jobs, increased revenues, and a vibrant local business sector. Economic gardening seeks to focus on growing and nurturing local businesses rather than hunting for “big game” outside the area.
~ Christine Hamilton-Pennell, ICMA.
Most of our local businesses do not have the financial resources or know-how to access updated market research and methods, governmental resources, accounting and banking professionals and/or manufacturing, wholesaling and retail partnerships. We provide technical assistance, resources and delivery systems to help our local businesses grow and prosper.
Harnessing
Underwater Energy
Looking beyond our borders, Kunaka has engineered and designed a contribution to the future of power generation -- underwater turbine engine technology. The first phase of this project sources the renewable energy using the Gulf Stream current. The Gulf Stream, which is produced by the Earth’s rotation, contains a continuous enormous amount of hydro-kinetic energy which can be harnessed, creating green, eco-friendly, affordable power.
Submersible Power Gen Turbines
To tap into this immense source of renewable energy to produce electricity, Kunaka's infant startup Laguna EcoNergy Group (LEG) plans on creating submersible power plants that can operate for extremely long periods without servicing. The LEG Gulf Stream Turbine can do this because of its failure-proof design that depends on the laws of physics and has few moving parts.
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Technology
The LEG Gulf Stream Turbine relies on the relative locations of its centers of buoyancy and gravity to obtain its great stability and on a unique method of leveraging opposing forces to balance the lifting forces produced by the hydrofoils against the downward vector forces produced by the horizontal drag acting through the downward-angled anchor line. Because of their simplicity and lack of moving parts, they can generate electricity for extremely long periods without servicing.
The patents cover a self-supporting structure that allows the turbines to be positioned at those depths where the current can generate electricity at near the turbines’ design capacities. The actual conversion of the water’s kinetic energy into electricity utilizes the same technologies that are used by the wind-turbine industry. However, unlike the wind turbines, the LEG Gulf Stream Turbines will have very high capacity factors, extremely low Operations & Maintenance {O&M) costs, and be able to produce usable power 24-7.
Creating Community Spaces
and Gathering Opportunities
Laguna Beach is a diverse community with residents maintaining an unexpectedly varied income base: while 26 percent of households have incomes above $250K per year, a surprising 35 percent of Laguna households have incomes below $75K. Through our community projects, we strive to reach across this income divide to bring together residents from different economic backgrounds to gather and enjoy Laguna's activities and unique village atmosphere.
Two exciting new business concepts in this arena are currently protected by Non-Disclosure Agreements - please contact us if you would like more information.
Social Media Advocates
Most "mom 'n pop" stores do not have the time to effectively keep up their social media posts and replies for their businesses much less keep up with what is happening in their community. As part of our Economic Gardening program, we form a creative and engaged team to promote local businesses, events, causes and individuals while engaging local residents, employees and employers to understand the daily joys and concerns of our village. Our teams create fun Tik Tok-type promotional videos to help our neighbors get to know our local businesses, their owners and their staff, and they create community recaps to help our businesses keep up with the pace of what is happening on social media.
Social media has changed how many people communicate. Unfortunately, many people have become less informed about what is happening in our city as they are distracted by competing newsfeeds and notifications. We strive to build a bridge to cut through these distractions and bring our community closer together.
