Rancho Santa Margarita wants to welcome residents and visitors alike with a new landscaped entrance to the city.

At the corners of Santa Margarita Parkway right off of the SR-241, the sparse area is now marked by dirt and sycamore and pine trees. An updated aesthetic design, city leaders say, will bring a fresh look to Rancho Santa Margarita.

City leaders are looking for an entrance that includes updated greenery and the Rancho Santa Margarita seal, the latter a “priority” for Mayor Carol Gamble.

“I would like some tasteful and subtle signage to reinforce the identity of the city,” said Gamble. “We have a beautiful relief of the city seal in iron in the entry hall of City Hall. I believe a version of that signage would be very attractive and additive to the landscaping.”

The City Council was presented with three design concepts for one of its two entrances on Wednesday, Jan. 10, from Tri Nguyen, the city’s public engineer. For more than an hour, councilmembers considered the trio of designs and directed staff to come back with a new proposal that embodied all of their suggestions.

“This is a pretty big deal for a number of reasons,” said Councilmember Jerry Holloway. “It is worth it because people look at (the entrance) frequently.”

Noting how extensively the council debated the entrance design plans, Holloway added: “It is taking a long time to talk about something that isn’t life or death, which is a good thing.”

One design option featured more foliage, including Natal plum and Indian hawthorn plants covering the ground with a backdrop of bougainvillea. In this proposal, the existing sycamore trees would remain and a slate of magnolia trees would be added in the foreground.

Another option revolved around water-saving vegetation. This design would require irrigation during the planting phase but would need little to no water as roots are established.

Councilmembers were also presented with a design that created a grid pattern with sycamore and crape myrtle trees. The outskirts of the gride would be made up of crushed rock while the inside would be filled with “flowering accents,” according to the staff report.

Once a design is approved by the City Council, the construction will begin the next fiscal year, said Rancho Santa Margarita spokesperson Laura Lopez.

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The city already spent just over $20,000 on the design portion of its plans and has budgeted an additional $26,000 for further design costs. Costs for construction will be estimated after the design is complete.

Rancho Santa Margarita has entered a maintenance agreement with the California Department of Transportation, responsible for the road leading into the city, on the irrigation system. Caltrans has already agreed to connect the irrigation system to its existing water meter, according to Caltrans spokesperson Christine Knadler.

Rancho Santa Margarita would be responsible for maintaining the irrigation system for the project, according to the staff report.

Rancho Santa Margarita officials hired BGB Design Group in October to provide landscape architectural design services for the project.

The City Council does not have a date for when it will next consider a new design.