Council speaks on Pacific City

June Casagrande

The city will get its two cents in on a project planned for

Huntington Beach, council members decided Tuesday.

The City Council voted 7-0 to chime in on the environmental study

for the Pacific City project, saying that the study and the

development raise a number of concerns for Newport.

“I’m glad to see the city is making our position known,”

Councilman Steven Rosansky said.

Not surprisingly, the biggest concern is traffic. The 31.5-acre

complex of commercial, retail, residential, office and restaurant

space includes 400 hotel rooms and 516 condominiums and will add

about 3,000 car trips a day to Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington

Beach. Some of this traffic is sure to cross over into Newport, and

Newport leaders want the study to take a closer look at exactly how

much.

A major sticking point between the two cities has to do with the

19th Street Bridge. The environmental study considers traffic

increases if the bridge is built, but doesn’t look at what happens if

it’s not and what that could then mean to Coast Highway in Newport.

“Huntington Beach analyzed it as if the bridge were there,”

Councilman Tod Ridgeway said. “ We want them to analyze it as if

there were not a bridge because they didn’t want the bridge in the

first place. I think that they’ll come up with substantially

different answers.”

Assistant City Manager Sharon Wood explained that it’s customary

for the city to offer comments on large projects that could directly

affect Newport Beach.

“This project looked like it had great possibility to have impacts

on Newport Beach so we did refer it to [the Environmental Quality

Affairs Committee],” Wood said.

That committee examined the environmental study on the Pacific

City project and wrote the comments that City Council members will

sign off on as their own. Besides traffic, Newport Beach’s comments

also question whether the environmental study adequately considers

the project’s possible effects on air and water quality. For example,

Newport Beach is also taking the liberty of correcting projected

population figures in the document, and suggesting that the developer

use porous pavement whenever possible in order to prevent runoff into

the ocean.

* 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.