Greenlight challenges proposed changes

Alicia Robinson

Slow-growth advocates are challenging proposed changes to the city’s

development guidelines now being discussed by a group of residents.

In a letter to the City Council on Tuesday, Phil Arst, the

spokesman for the slow-growth group Greenlight, charged that some

alternatives being discussed by the committee could add 200,000 car

trips a day to city streets and increase wait times at already

crowded intersections.

The general plan guides development in Newport Beach, setting

zoning densities and allowed uses for land in the city. In 2003 the

city began the once-a-decade process of updating the plan.

Suggestions being made include intense development in congested

areas such as Mariner’s Mile, Arst said.

An additional 200,000 car trips “is absolutely unacceptable, and

they’ve got to go back to square one and not permit any more growth,

even if it’s in the general plan, that adds to already unsatisfactory

traffic conditions,” he said.

Doing otherwise would fly in the face of what most residents want,

Arst said, noting that a 2002 survey of residents commissioned by the

city showed that a majority of those polled wanted to keep the status

quo when it came to development. Most also opposed widening streets

and allowing high-rise offices and large hotels.

When the general plan advisory committee wraps up its work --

possibly late next year -- a laundry list of alternatives for each

area of the city will go to the City Council. The council was

scheduled to hear about progress on the plan at a study session

Tuesday.

City Councilman Steve Bromberg said he was surprised by Arst’s

letter because fellow Greenlighter Allan Beek is on the panel that

created the committee doing the update.

The committee is made up of residents, so the alternatives reflect

what they want, Bromberg added.

“I’m taken aback that Greenlight feels that these principles that

38 good citizens in the city came up with constitutes unreasonable

development,” he said.

One key question is whether residents will vote on the general

plan update when it’s complete. Arst said he believes residents

should get to vote.

Such decisions are yet to be made, city officials said.

“These are questions that we haven’t begun to think about because

we don’t have a recommended land-use plan,” assistant city manager

Sharon Wood said.

Under Measure S -- or Greenlight -- guidelines, a general plan

amendment must be put to a vote if it would increase a property’s use

by 100 dwelling units, 40,000 square feet or 100 peak-hour car trips,

she said.

“Some members of the City Council have said that even if those

thresholds are not reached they think the matter should go to a

vote,” she added.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (714) 966-4626.