Coastal plan will soon be available to public
June Casagrande
A draft version of the city’s Local Coastal Plan could be made
available for public review by the end of January, as city leaders
are scrambling to meet a June deadline with the California Coastal
Commission.
The roughly 150-page document will be the first tangible form of a
long-awaited document that sets development standards for the city’s
coastline and for public access to beaches.
“The coastal bluff is an example of an area where we’ve had to
consider this very carefully,” said Councilman Tod Ridgeway, a member
of the city committee charged with drafting the standards. “On one
paragraph alone, we spent an hour and a half.”
At issue, he said, is balancing the rights of property owners near
the city’s bluffs with public views and public access to the
coastline. To make it harder, this balancing act must also meet the
standards of the coastal commission, which has set a June 30 deadline
for submitting the final draft.
Committee members will meet the first week in January to give the
document a last going over before submitting it in draft form to
staff of the state coastal commission. Input from the commission
staff will be considered by city leaders as they craft the final
version of the plan.
The state Coastal Act of 1972 requires cities along the ocean to
create such plans. Newport Beach has slowly made attempts to
undertake the huge project since the 1980s, but only really got
started in January when the city created an ad hoc committee to begin
reviewing the issues and drafting the document.
The document is too large to post on the city’s Web site, Ridgeway
said. When it is made available to the public, copies will likely be
distributed to libraries and be available for review at City Hall.
* 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.
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