For what price a new home?

June Casagrande

If you want a permit for a variance, first you go to the Planning

Department and fill out some paperwork. Then you exit that building,

walk to the front building where the cashier is, and pay your fee.

Then, receipt in hand, you walk back to the first building, where

Planning Department staff will give you the permit.

If you want to apply for a job with the city, there’s no place to

sit while you wait. If you and a group of neighbors want to meet with

staff from the city manager’s office, you’ll have to stand outside in

the hall. There isn’t room for more than three people at a time to

sit and wait.

Those are just a few examples City Manager Homer Bludau offers to

illustrate just how cramped, outdated and inefficient the City Hall

complex is.

And if you don’t believe him, you’ll get a chance to see for

yourself. Perhaps as soon as next month, city officials will begin

meeting with members of the public and even giving City Hall tours in

hopes of gathering resident input on spending up to $30 million on a

new City Hall.

The council has approved spending $578,185 to draw up some

schematic designs of options for a new City Hall. But that’s just the

beginning of what could be a long, contentious and ultimately costly

process.

“This is under consideration,” Bludau said. “It isn’t done deal.

We are serious enough to move forward, do our due diligence, see what

the costs are and how the community feels about it.

“What council has said so far is that we’re serious about looking

at the planning to see if we want to move forward with a new City

Hall,” he said. “The first step will be holding some public meetings

to see what does and what doesn’t work and giving people tours, doing

public education and outreach.”

The public outreach, which could begin next month, will be the

easy part. Once contractor Griffin Holdings Inc. has finished

schematics early next year, the real arm wrestling will begin. Staff

and many members of the council seem eager to improve the aging

facility. They cite problems like archaic air conditioning, outmoded

seismic standards, cramped workspace, lack of amenities for people

with disabilities and outrageously inefficient

But they differ on how to proceed. Councilman John Heffernan

thinks that now is just not the time to spend nearly $600,000 on the

study, much less spend $20 million or $30 million on the complex

itself.

Councilman Don Webb was a little disturbed to see the rough plans

laid out at a study session because they basically called for razing

the existing City Hall buildings and fire station and replacing them

with one new building for City Hall, a new fire station and a parking

garage.

“I like the old buildings,” said Webb, who instead proposed

finding a way to salvage a few of the buildings and add on structures

to create more space and greater efficiency.

That could prove logistically impossible or financially

impractical, but for now, it’s on the list of options to be explored.

The parking garage would pay for itself even while providing free

parking to City Hall visitors. Spaces would be available for a fee on

nights and weekends to people parking to go to the beach, Lido

Village and other nearby attractions.

But while the parking structure looks like a financial no-brainer,

the rest of the project isn’t so lucky. The biggest question looming

is: Where will the money come from.

The city’s answer, in a nutshell, is: We haven’t figured that part

out yet.

* 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.