Mayor touts airport area development

June Casagrande

NEWPORT BEACH -- He’s said it before, and he’ll say it again: “Quality

of life demands that we have strong economic growth.”

Staying true to his pledge to promote responsible development in the

city, Mayor Tod Ridgeway made this point a central theme of his State of

the City address at Wednesday’s annual meeting of the Newport Beach

Chamber of Commerce.

Since taking office in January, Ridgeway has launched a campaign to

take development issues off the defensive, and to take a bold offensive

against Greenlight, the city’s slow-growth law.

Further pinpointing this vision, Ridgeway told chamber and community

members that he sees the airport area as an ideal place to foster

economic growth to benefit the city’s overall quality of life.

“The airport area is ripe for redevelopment,” he said, noting that

buildings such as the one-story offices on Birch Street are obsolete. But

he was quick to point out that some areas should remain relatively

untouched.

“We’re not interested in allowing any expansive development to occur

in the coastal zone,” he said, drawing the line from Bristol Street

south.

He underscored his position on development by laying out some of the

financial difficulties facing the city: Property taxes, the No. 1 source

of city revenue, will increase only about 2% to 3% in the next fiscal

year, compared with growth of about 8% in the 2001-02 fiscal year. A

nationwide slump in tourism is hitting home, too, he said. Hotel taxes

and sales taxes from restaurants, both crucial sources of income to the

city, have also slumped.

And Ridgeway sees yet another financial danger: a state budget crisis

that has municipalities braced for the worst.

“I think there’s going to be a wholesale attack on revenue that comes

to cities from the state,” he said.

Though Gov. Gray Davis has said he would not tap into the vehicle

license fees the state passes along to cities, Newport Beach officials

remain so skeptical that they have decided not to count this fee as a

revenue source in the next fiscal budget.

The bulk of Ridgeway’s address was a comprehensive snapshot of the

city and the challenges that face residents and officials in the coming

years. At the top of the priority list, he said, is extending the John

Wayne Airport settlement agreement. The agreement now in place to limit

flights, growth and noise at John Wayne, expires Dec. 31, 2005.

“There is nothing more important than the extension of that

agreement,” he said, noting that hopes are low for building an airport at

the closed El Toro Marine Air base.

The second most-important challenge facing the city, he said, is

updating the general plan. The document, undergoing its first major

revision since the 1980s, has become the main battleground of the

Greenlight debate. This is because the city’s Greenlight law bases its

development guidelines on the general plan.

“We are going to have to be more creative making sure there is growth

in the business community,” Ridgeway said.

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

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