County seeks missing documentation

Noaki Schwartz

NEWPORT BEACH -- Residents of the Seawind community, furious about the

construction of a new housing tract in Newport Coast that blocks their

views, have accused the county of losing the development’s documentation.

“In talking to some of the local officials, they told us not to talk

about views and aesthetics but to focus on noise, congestion and

pollution,” said disgruntled resident Peter Hutt. He said residents then

shifted from complaining about the Irvine Co. development’s effect on

their views to fighting the battle on legal grounds.

Residents hope that without the documents, the project will at least be

delayed.

But county officials insist the accompanying papersaren’t lost -- that

it’s merely a matter of contacting all the proper channels.

“These are different approvals and permits obtained through different

departments, as well as different jurisdictions,” said Holly Vale,

spokeswoman for county Supervisor Tom Wilson. “The county’s trying to

collect them together in one place.”

And it’s taking some time.

Seawind residents started asking for the documentation more than two

weeks ago and the county has yet to produce the papers.

“We had a meeting planned with Tom Wilson and they postponed it because

they couldn’t find the documents,” said Hutt.

Newport Beach city staff were also scheduled to meet with county

officials last week to obtain copies of the documents, but that meeting

was delayed as well.

Tom Mathews, director of county planning, said the postponed Newport

meeting was due to miscommunication and noted that a Seawind community

meeting actually occurred last week, but without the documents in

question.

In the meantime, the county has organized a task force to get all the

paperwork together, said Seawind residents. But, Mathews, who is leading

the five-person effort, said “it’s just staff doing their job” and not an

organized task force.

“From the outside looking in, it looks like we’re incompetent,” he said.

“I hope that the record we have assembled is complete.”

Dave Kiff, Newport Beach’s deputy city manager, said he sympathizes with

the county’s effort in that there is so much paperwork going through

various departments that they are hard to keep track of.

“If you came to [Newport] and said you wanted a three- to four-year-old

environmental report, we’d have to look too,” Kiff said. “I do believe

that everything is there now and that the missing pieces are going to

show up.”

The development of the property began at the end of October and sparked a

significant amount of controversy in the neighboring Seawind community.

Angry residents claim they never received notice that the land would be

developed.

They learned about it the hard way when bulldozers appeared on the site,

said community member Allen Murray.

Both Irvine Co. representatives and county officials said the development

has been in the works for nearly 15 years and that they followed proper

procedures. Mathews said standard procedure is to notify residents who

live within 300 feet of the project, and although this falls short of

Seawind’s boundaries, the county did notify them.

“Seawind got two notices from the county and one notice from the city of

Irvine,” Mathews said. “We believe that the record will show that we went

beyond the required notification.”

The scramble is largely because the land being developed has passed

through various jurisdictions. Until last year, the property was part of

Irvine. Before that, it was annexed by the county. As a result, the

paperwork could be scattered in both Irvine and the county.

Newport Beach is expected to annex the area in the near future, further

complicating the matter.