Controversy develops at meeting

Deirdre Newman

A meeting about future development in the city got mired in

controversy this week, with some residents saying they were denied a

chance to speak.

At the meeting Monday, general plan advisory committee members

presented options for developing different parts of the city, a

preliminary step before solid proposals are drawn up.

The fireworks began when Phil Arst, the leader of the Greenlight

slow-growth movement, presented information suggesting that residents

want far less development than the amount committee members were

discussing.

Following Arst’s comments, which riled committee members, the

meeting was adjourned. That left resident Mark Tabbert and others

without a chance to speak, Tabbert said.

“Members of the committee, after inviting public comment, began

debating with Mr. Arst and then abruptly stopped, stood up as one,

and it was over, leaving Mr. Arst standing and others mute,” Tabbert

said in an e-mail. “Democracy in action it was not.”

Nancy Gardner, the co-chair of the committee who was running the

meeting, said she ended it after asking if anyone else wanted to

comment, and no one responded. She acknowledged that some committee

members were annoyed by Arst’s comments and felt like he was

lecturing them.

“I think it was sort of a general level of irritation,” Gardner

said. “It’s really hard for someone to come in and sit at a meeting

like ours and understand all that’s gone on and understand what we’ve

had to learn to get to this point.”

These meetings have been going on for about two years, and

committee members have been exploring alternatives for areas like

Banning Ranch and the area around John Wayne Airport. Committee

members, who represent diverse interests, want to add enough housing

to meet the regional housing need, Gardner said.

At the meeting Monday, committee members were merely presenting

options for development throughout the city. Not all of them will

become proposals, Gardner said.

After the committee presentations, Arst presented data from a poll

that the city sponsored, gauging voter attitudes about development.

Its consensus was to retain the character of the city and that

development would detract from the quality of life.

Arst said he felt the version of the update the committee

discussed presented significantly more development in most of the

city.

So did one of the committee members, environmentalist Jan

Vandersloot, who said he was also taken aback by even the mention of

more building.

“All of a sudden the staff was introducing the word

‘intensification’ into many of the areas they were studying,”

Vandersloot said. “ ... And in the visioning process conducted by the

city two years ago, people were concerned and expressing desire to

keep densities and intensities down to improve traffic.”

Updating the general plan is all about balance, and some areas

will need increased density so other areas can be devoted to more

open space, Gardner said.

“It sounds like we could increase this here and this there and

someone just stepping in might say, ‘Geez, if all they’re going to do

is intensify, it’s going to be L.A. times 10,’” Gardner said. “But

each group was looking at their own little area and looking at it to

see, ‘Can this area meet some of these needs we have?’”

The next update meeting will be in October, and Vandersloot urged

residents to participate in the process.

“People need to get involved if we want to fulfill the

visioning-process mandates,” Vandersloot said. “We don’t want to see

this kind of creeping density come back into the process.”