Residents balking at annexation

June Casagrande

SANTA ANA HEIGHTS -- A first taste of what it might be like to be part

of Newport Beach has some residents of this unincorporated area wondering

if they want to be annexed by the city at all.

A handful of residents on Tuesday attended a Newport Beach City

Council study session on annexing east Santa Ana Heights and Bay Knolls

to the city. Their concerns at first centered on construction of a fire

station and a community center. But by the end of the meeting, they had

some new worries.

“I was a staunch supporter of annexation, but now I have reservations:

What are we getting into with these people who look at us as a poor

relation and a stepchild?” asked Santa Ana Heights resident Barbara

Venezia.

Residents learned April 2 that Newport Beach officials had approached

the county to ask for redevelopment money, set aside for public work in

Santa Ana Heights, to build a fire station in the area.

Some, including Venezia, say the city should have come to the

residents first.

This is especially true, they say, because the fire station would

serve areas already in Newport Beach.

“Why should we take the whole hit, especially when the fire station is

going to serve a very large business community within Newport Beach’s

borders that has hotels and high-rise office buildings?” asked Roger

Summers, chairman of the resident committee that works with the county on

redevelopment.

As a redevelopment area, property tax growth from Santa Ana Heights

goes to paying back the county Redevelopment Agency. This means Newport

Beach will make only about $110,000 a year in property taxes from the

area until the redevelopment term ends in 2035.

A city proposal to build the fire station at the same site as a

community center also drew fire.

These points of contention were compounded when City Councilwoman

Norma Glover suggested the city should reconsider its longtime plan of

annexing east Santa Ana Heights and Bay Knolls to the city.

“I’m not in the mood to take on a group that doesn’t want to come in,”

Glover said Tuesday. “Maybe we should stop the process.”

That sentiment surprised some of the residents.

“I don’t know where she got, out of what we said, that we don’t want

to be annexed,” Venetia said of Glover’s comments. “That wasn’t the

question. We were talking about the fire station.”

Newport Beach has been working to annex parts of Santa Ana Heights and

Bay Knolls for years, and typically residents there have been strong and

vocal in their desire to become part of the city.

At the same time, they’ve been vocal about not wanting to become part

of Costa Mesa.

Summers said some residents were disconcerted to see how quickly their

fates could be changed by city leaders -- especially in a community so

diverse that some residences are zoned to have horses.

“We put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into our specific plan that

says how may horses you can have on half an acre, what [building] height

limits should be,” Summers said. “What if the city would want to come in

and change zoning to no longer allow horses?”

But the straw most likely to break the annexation camel’s back is John

Wayne Airport. Summers said residents there believe the city has cooled

on its support for an airport at El Toro in favor of making sure flight

restrictions at John Wayne remain largely as they are today.

But as the neighborhood closest to the flight path, Santa Ana Heights

residents are less amenable to the “Scenario One” plan to add 12 or more

flights by the noisiest planes. And some wonder whether annexation to

Newport Beach would provide their best defense against airport expansion.

Summers said his committee may soon hold a special meeting to rethink

the annexation question.

“It’s too soon to tell what the temperature of the water is,” Summers

said. “People up here could now be saying: Is Newport really the best

place for us to put our faith and time and effort and money?”

* June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 june.casagrande@latimes.comf7 .