St. Andrew’s proposal for all

As a member of St. Andrew’s Building Committee and a 19-year resident

of Newport Beach, I want to share some additional insight based on

our goals for the St. Andrew’s proposal, our meetings with the

neighborhood and specific details as analyzed by the city of Newport

Beach’s environmental report. We are concerned by the debate in the

neighborhood and hope that our continued meetings with our neighbors

will help address their concerns, while still allowing our proposal

for a youth and family center to move forward.

The No. 1 goal for this program is to create a youth and family

center, where the children of this community will have a safe and

positive place to congregate, especially during the most dangerous

after-school hours between 3 and 6 p.m. The center is needed to meet

the current needs of our youth program and will add a multi-purpose

area, meeting rooms, computer facilities and classrooms. In addition,

youth activities that currently occur outdoors will be relegated to

the sound-attenuated, multi-purpose area and will significantly

reduce the current and future noise concerns in the neighborhood.

The other elements of our plan include increasing parking

availability to encourage our guests to avoid parking on neighborhood

streets and to offset minimal parking requirements generated by the

new youth and family center. We are moving the current youth and

family area into the new facility and converting the old area into

additional meeting and conference rooms. We are proposing to add some

storage space and new, to code, restroom capacity.

To provide these amenities, we propose to construct only one new

building and tear down and rebuild two other buildings. The youth and

family center will be the only new structure and will have a

multi-purpose room/gymnasium on the ground floor and meeting space

and classrooms underground. We plan to reconstruct the existing

education building and Fellowship Hall to include additional

classrooms, storage in the basement and conference and meeting space

on the second floors. We then propose to construct subterranean

parking at the existing parking site, creating an additional 150

full-size spaces and 400 overall.

Out of all the new construction, it is important to note that more

than half of the additional density will be underground. In fact,

more than 20,000 square feet of the proposed additional 36,000 square

feet will not be seen by the neighborhood. Of the total, more than

16,000 square feet will be storage, halls and restrooms.

In an effort to clarify the impact to the surrounding community, I

would like to present several findings according to the city of

Newport Beach’s environmental report:

“It is important to note that although the floor area will

increase by approximately 36,000 square feet, the function and use of

the church will not change.” (4.1-6)

“The site is currently zoned R-1 and R-2, which permits

institutional uses such as churches.... approval of a zone change

will make the zoning and land use designation entirely consistent.”

(4.1-9)

“This statistical area is designated predominantly for residential

development; however, in addition to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian

Church, several public and institutional uses exist within the Cliff

Haven Area, including Newport Harbor High School, Cliff Haven Park,

and Ensign Intermediate School.” (4.1-1)

“ ... several potential impacts were identified; however, in those

instances, specific mitigation measures have been included to reduce

the potential significant adverse effects to a less than significant

level.” (1-3)

“The increase in traffic generated by the proposed increase in

floor area will not result in any significant cumulative impacts.”

(4.1-6)

St. Andrew’s is willing, as the report was presented, to accept

all the mitigation suggestions. It was never our intention to start a

debate with our neighbors. It is just the opposite. Our No. 1

priority in this proposal is to create a youth and family center for

this community. We decided that while we were considering the project

that we should help alleviate the current parking and traffic

problems in the neighborhood, which are brought on not only by the

church but by the schools as well. We, therefore, proposed an

underground parking facility that will add 150 new parking spaces at

the church, bringing the total availability at the church to 400

parking spaces. We proposed this and the other elements of the plan

in an effort to be good neighbors.

We are deeply saddened by the distress this proposal has caused

the neighborhood. We began meeting with our neighbors more than two

years ago and have been meeting ever since. We are open to

suggestions, and there is nothing in the plans written in stone. We

are currently in negotiations with our neighbors and are hopeful that

we can arrive at a peaceful resolution that will allow the youth of

this community a safe place to congregate while respecting the

concerns of our neighbors.

JAKE EASTON III

Newport Beach