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.