Greenlight ready to change

June Casagrande

Greenlight leaders want the Greenlight Initiative guidelines changed.

As the threat of a lawsuit against the city looms, Greenlight

spokesman Phil Arst said that he wants the city to change the way it

approves hotel projects under Measure S, the Greenlight Initiative.

In recent months, Greenlight leaders and city officials have waged

a war of words over how to decide whether hotel proposals should go

to a Greenlight vote. The initiative requires that voters approve

projects that significantly exceed general plan limits for peak-hour

traffic trips, total square footage or number of homes.

But city guidelines for hotels don’t rely on square footage to

measure how projects will affect surrounding areas because hotels’

effects on the community are different from commercial and

residential developments. In a series of public meetings in 2000 and

2001, city officials and residents hammered out how this difference

should be taken into account in the Greenlight Initiative.

The guidelines they drafted say that, for hotel projects,

Greenlight should be triggered solely on traffic figures.

City Atty. Bob Burnham said that this decision was arrived at with

the cooperation of Greenlight supporters.

“The guidelines [were] adopted by the City Council, with the full

participation and apparent blessing of Measure S proponents,” Burnham

wrote in November.

Greenlight leaders late last year cried foul, saying they

disagreed that traffic should be the sole trigger. But this week, as

they threatened to sue the city over the matter, Greenlight leaders

shifted their focus to say that they want the City Council to rewrite

the Measure S guidelines to add square footage as a trigger for

Greenlight votes for new hotel projects.

“Our main theme is to get Measure S guidelines changed so that

hotels aren’t automatically exempt,” Arst said.

He added that, while the general plan considers only the number of

hotel rooms at a given site, a square footage measure could better

take into account large convention facilities that are part of

hotels.

The Greenlight leaders’ demand comes at a time when the city is

preparing to consider a move very similar to what they are asking

for. Burnham on Thursday said that city staff will likely present to

the council in several months a change to the way the city considers

some projects. The agenda item will likely ask whether general plan

amendments for hotels take square footage into account. The

difference is that the changes would not necessarily apply to Measure

S guidelines.

The city began considering the move late last year in response to

complaints from Greenlight supporters who argued that the 110-room

Regent Newport Beach Resort project at Marinapark should go to a

Greenlight vote instead of a general vote. But the council action

would not affect the Marinapark hotel; it would apply to future

projects.

The Regent Newport Beach Resort is slated to be on the ballot in

November, although there’s no telling whether the lawsuit could

change that. City Council members who sent the question to voters

said the project was not subject to a Greenlight vote. They said they

were sending it to voters only because they felt it was the best way

to decide the matter.

Arst and others protested, ultimately threatening to sue. They

said that the decision sets a bad precedent for usurping the

Greenlight Initiative in the future. They also charged that under

that method, some facts about the project were less likely to be made

public.

Burnham said that information such as lease terms on the

city-owned Marinapark property and projected tax revenue from the

project would be considered in public meetings before the vote.

“I challenge anybody to tell me honestly how the public will get

anything less than full information [by sending the matter to a

non-Greenlight vote],” Burnham said. “I believe the public will get a

lot more information.”

Arst said the group plans to file the suit in about two weeks if

an agreement isn’t reached before then.

* 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.