Debate likely on hotel size question

Alicia Robinson

Another battle brewing between Greenlight leaders and city officials

could boil over tonight when council members consider proposed

changes to the slow-growth law’s guidelines.

City officials said the changes won’t be earth-shattering --

Councilman Steve Bromberg called them “housekeeping.” But Greenlight

leaders think the proposed guidelines are still in conflict with the

Measure S statute.

“The city has made progress in protecting the voters’ right to

vote on major projects,” Greenlight committee spokesman Phil Arst

said. “That’s the purpose of our endeavor and the lawsuit, but there

are still several major sticking points that we hope we can work out

[tonight].”

Council members put off voting on the proposed changes in March so

they’d have time to understand the technical issues involved in how

the law relates to hotels. Typically, the city has looked at how much

traffic a hotel would produce by counting the number of rooms.

Greenlight, however, measures increases in traffic by size or

expected car trips.

“There was some ambiguity in where we were headed, for sure,”

Mayor Tod Ridgeway said. “We weren’t prepared as a council without

having previously read those modifications to adequately address

them.”

Since the March meeting, Newport Beach City Atty. Bob Burnham

modified the guideline changes in response to council requests.

“These really are modifications that I think the City Council was

asking me to draft,” Burnham said. “Some of them are very similar if

not identical to what was looked at in March.”

Arst said the city’s proposed changes haven’t fully cleared up

ambiguities in the guidelines that would allow council members to

simply pass a project on to voters rather than discussing it and

voting on it as a council first. Greenlight members also aren’t

satisfied with the proposed changes to how the city applies Measure S

guidelines to hotels and theater development projects.

Tonight Greenlight committee members are expected to suggest their

own changes and ask for a separate meeting to discuss the proposed

modifications.

“I believe we’ll end up asking the council for a continuance,

saying there are too many points to be settled to do that at a public

meeting,” Arst said.

Burnham said it’s arguable how significant the changes really are

because few people have been asking to amend the city’s general plan,

which is when Greenlight guidelines are used.

Developers are apparently daunted by the possibility of pitching a

project to every voter in the city instead of the planning commission

and council.

“We’ve really not had many applicants for amendments in the recent

past, and I think that’s because of Greenlight,” Burnham said.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.