Future of Greenlight a shade unknown

June Casagrande

There was no landslide, no wave of populist passion tipping the

scales of the City Council to create a Greenlight majority.

By 10 p.m. on Nov. 5, members of the slow-growth movement had won

one important victory. With the District 6 win of Dick Nichols,

Greenlight’s presence on the seven-member council doubled. But their

other three candidates lost, and with them was lost the group’s hope

for majority control.

In the wake of the November council election, the role and even

the future of the movement is murky.

“There’s no defining issue right now, no large project coming down

the pike, nothing Greenlight is clearly focused on,” said John

Heffernan, until last month the only council member endorsed by

Greenlight.

Plans to build a luxury resort at the site of the Marinapark

mobile home park are in limbo as developer Stephen Sutherland

undergoes a campaign to win resident support for the project. The

Greenlight Committee has not taken a position on the resort and it

remains unclear whether it ever will.

The development of Banning Ranch -- a proposed mixed-use

development covering 400 acres near West Coast Highway at Superior

Avenue -- remains in serious doubt as myriad logistical, political,

land-use and financial issues confound the project.

No other large projects are visible anywhere on the horizon.

“We haven’t taken votes on where we’re going from here,” said

former mayor Evelyn Hart. “Of course the general plan update is

really No. 1 as far as I’m concerned.”

The day Measure S, the Greenlight Initiative, became law remains

the most significant and lasting victory of the movement. In November

2000, the measure, which requires voter approval of development

projects that significantly exceed general plan limits, won with a

63% majority of the vote.

The Newport Dunes served as a rallying point for the Greenlight

cause. Plans by former operators Evans Hotels to build a large hotel

there mobilized opponents to support the Greenlight Initiative.

A year later, the law was put to the test. In the first and only

Measure S ballot to date, voters overwhelmingly shot down the

expansion of the Koll Center office complex in the airport area. It

was another strong win for the group.

FADING FROM THE PICTURE

Now, just one year after that, Greenlight might be on the wane --

perhaps obsolete, perhaps even a victim of its own success.

“We thought that Greenlight was a great name that would sweep a

bunch of us into office, and obviously that didn’t happen,” said

Allan Beek, who, as the Greenlight candidate for District 3, won more

votes than any other Greenlight candidate but was nonetheless

defeated by retired Public Works Director Don Webb. “My feeling is

that the name Greenlight has run its course and should quietly die.”

Beek was author of the Greenlight initiative who later split with

the group and channeled his slow-growth and traffic-control goals

into the group Stop Polluting Our Newport, nicknamed SPON. He

re-affiliated with Greenlight in the last election, hoping that the

shared goals of the two groups could get better representation on a

council they see as too heavily influenced by developers. But voters

didn’t follow suit.

Greenlight is represented by Phil Arst, official spokesman for the

group. George Jeffries and Hart avoid the spotlight, but along with

Arst they comprise the Greenlight inner sanctum. Central Newport

Beach Community Assn. President Tom Hyans is also an important player

who tends to emphasize peninsula issues.

Though some have speculated that Greenlight consists mainly of

this handful of people, the group does have solid citizen support, as

evidenced by the turnout of about 100 people at a campaign kickoff in

August. But where the movement will go now remains unclear.

“The elephant in the room is the general plan update process,”

Heffernan said.

The city is currently updating the document, which contains

detailed plans for development, traffic and many other aspects of the

city’s future for the next 20 years. Because the Greenlight

Initiative’s limits on development were based on the general plan,

the tweaking of the document itself could, in effect, bypass the

initiative’s original restrictions.

“We’ve been suspicious that [Greenlight opponents] may try to use

the general plan update to circumvent Greenlight,” said Beek, who

serves on the General Plan Update Committee as its slow-growth voice.

He explained that one way to do this would be to remove from the

plan the specific limits on buildable square feet per lot. “So far I

haven’t seen any sign of their trying to do that. I don’t see any

attempt to water it down.”

A FINE-PRINT BATTLE

Nichols, who will be sworn in to the council this month, agreed

that the hub of the city’s growth battle is in the fine print of the

general plan update.

“I think everybody’s concerned about the general plan, because if

they change the general plan they could get through all kinds of

stuff without having a vote of the people,” he said. “I think people

are worried about that.”

Ironically, the general plan update itself also appears subject to

a Greenlight vote, city officials have predicted.

But despite the lack of a current, clear focus such as the Koll

project, Greenlight leaders say their cause is as important and

relevant is ever.

They continue to work to promote their ideas of what’s good and

bad for the city, with office buildings a favorite target. Greenlight

leaders say that office buildings don’t bring in enough property tax

revenue to make them worthwhile. At the same time, Greenlighters

insist, office buildings attract traffic from throughout the region

while adding to what they say is an already lopsided ratio of jobs to

homes.

Car dealerships, they say, are a much better use of land,

especially in the airport area -- a position that’s shared by even

their most outspoken opponent Mayor Tod Ridgeway.

Opponents like Ridgeway say that Greenlight goes too far,

threatening to stifle revitalization of especially aging parts of the

city. But Greenlight leaders insist that by focusing only on large

developments and by letting voters decide, their cause will remain

relevant.

“We know the majority of people want status quo,” Hart said. “That

doesn’t mean that people don’t want redevelopment, that they don’t

want things to be nicer. They do. We must as an organization continue

with our mission statement, which can be summed up as we’re concerned

about the quality of life for Newport Beach and we don’t want

overgrowth impacting our streets to the point that as residents we’re

not able to move around.”

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport.

She may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

june.casagrande@latimes.com.