Views toward expansion continue to vary

Why is it that almost every time that I open the Daily Pilot there is

a story about a church in a residential neighborhood that is trying

to expand or over develop “their” property?

I thought that the whole idea behind the Christian religion was

the “Good Samaritan” principal. I guess that is because the church

that I went to growing up had a minister who actually lived in the

neighborhood and who knew the concerns of the neighbors. The Barbara

Rawlings letter (“A ‘promise that won’t be soon forgotten,” Pilot,

Friday) struck a chord, and St. Andrew’s Pastor John Huffman’s use of

semantics (“‘Promise’ was never that church wouldn’t expand”) in

Saturday’s Pilot to justify splitting a community is just a sign of

the times.

I have 25 houses being built on an area not big enough for 17 just

across the street from my house. A church used to be on this

property.

In the past, we had heavier-than-usual traffic every Sunday and a

good, uncrowded preschool for our kids. Once these houses are built,

we will have heavier-than-usual traffic every day, and our already

overcrowded elementary schools will need to bus even more

neighborhood kids to another neighborhood to go to school each day.

It seems to me we need to rewrite the definition for the word

“neighbor” to include the phrase, “watch your back.”

MIKE SCHARNELL

Costa Mesa

Regarding the St. Andrew’s Church proposed growth, I think that

Pastor John Huffman’s letter, explaining the alleged promise in

Saturday’s forum (“‘Promise’ was never that church wouldn’t expand”)

section of the Daily Pilot is excellent. I fully support the position

of St. Andrew’s Church. I think it’s been entirely reasonable in its

efforts to accommodate the neighborhood and its opposition -- much of

which, I think, is just frankly selfish.

RICHARD LITTLE

Newport Beach

Everything I read is about Cliff Drive. Clay Street, between St.

Andrews and Irvine, is what they should be concerned about.

LOIS GLANN

Newport Beach

This is to express my dismay over the city support for Saint

Andrew’s excessive expansion. Like many of my neighbors in Newport

Heights, I have been busy and distant from this project, presuming

the Planning Division would hold to the established standards known

to me, my local clients and neighbors. As a registered architect and

land planning consultant, I am familiar with those standards, having

processed discretionary actions on my own home and other homes in

Newport Beach. In every case, I was advised by the city staff that if

one individual contested an application, there was strong likelihood

that the building project would be denied.

Specifically, in one instance involving a variance request, I

obtained letters of support from all the adjacent neighbors except

one. This one individual opposed the project at the commission on

grounds which I and my client considered spurious, and so we appealed

it to the council, where it was again denied.

My client and I respected the city’s decision recognizing that

when an individual buys property in a community, he also buys into a

communitywide set of development standards, which have been

established to prescribe and protect the level of amenity of the

entire community. It is axiomatic that no individual or institution

in that community has the right to develop his property contrary to

those standards for any reason, good or bad, without the concurrence

of

the entire community.

The proliferation of signs that read “please no expansion”

throughout the Newport Heights and Cliff Haven neighborhoods indicate

that rather more than one individual is opposed to this application.

These signs indicate that the numbers in opposition are rather more

than 100. (Also according to family friends who attend St. Andrew’s,

there is even a diversity of opinion within the church itself

regarding the expansion). These signs are the voice of the Cliff

Haven and Newport Heights neighborhoods raised to regain the

attention of the Staff and the Planning Commission, who since the May

20 commission session have ignored those neighborhoods whose

concurrence it characterized at that time as critical to city

approval for the church’s application.

In my professional capacity, I have reviewed the St. Andrew’s

plans. The proposal is out of scale with its surrounding

neighborhood. It is only served by local residential streets but is

sized to accommodate a potential volume of occupancy that obviously

exceeds the capacity of those local streets. As such, it is the sort

of institution that should be located on a major arterial, or at

least a community collector, not crammed into a quiet, semi-secluded

neighborhood of local streets with continuous residential frontage

and multiple driveways. It is also evident from the plans that the

interior spaces are sized to potentially accommodate a volume of

occupancy considerably greater than the level of occupancy stipulated

in the conditional-use application. If the current architectural

plans are approved, the city risks an endless series of complaints

and potential legal action from the neighborhood in regard to

enforcement of the restricted occupancies stipulated in the

conditional-use application. This is especially true in that the city

does not take any initiative regarding monitoring of occupancy levels

for conformity with the conditional-use permit, but rather, entrusts

it to the applicant. Needless to say, this amounts to entrusting the

henhouse to the fox.

Two facts of the St. Andrew’s processing strategy can only be

regarded as contemptuous of the surrounding neighborhoods and the

institutions of the city: First. Insofar as the initial general plan

amendment application indicated a 39,950-square-foot expansion, an

area close to the 40,000-square-foot Greenlight public vote

threshold, it was obviously conceived to cram as much footage onto

the property as could be accomplished without having to be submitted

to the public for a vote, and without regard to any developed program

of needs. Second. When in response to public pressure, the project

area was reduced, most of the reduction was achieved by reducing

circulation space, which has no impact on the potential occupancy

level of the building.

The Planning Commission would be well-advised not to endorse any

project that will render it worse than others by destroying the

physical scale of a neighborhood, and generating excess traffic,

(with the attendant need for a parking structure), which will

overburden the existing residential frontage streets, all of which

can, in turn, diminish property values.

This proposal, in its radical departure from the prescribed public

agency standards of the community, exhibits contempt of the spirit,

intent, and purpose, of the very concept of planning and zoning

itself. The city of Newport Beach should have the courage to stand up

to the economic pressure exerted by a wealthy and socially powerful

portion of church members who seek to enlist the institutions of the

city to impose their minority will on the overwhelming majority of

Cliff Haven and Newport Heights residents who rightfully oppose their

plans.

ERNEST BENNETT ADAMS

Newport Beach

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ernest Bennett Adams’ letter was sent to city

officials and the Daily Pilot.