Housing, retail growth explored for general plan

Alicia Robinson

Newport Beach city officials are asking residents to help draw the

outlines of the city’s general plan, the blueprint that will guide

development for the next 20 years.

The plan hasn’t been updated for more than a decade. In 2002, the

city began the comprehensive overhaul that’s now underway, and its

progress will be discussed at a workshop today.

A committee of residents and city officials has created several

alternative plans for each of 12 geographic areas in the city.

Some of the suggestions include:

* Significant housing projects in the airport area, which could

gain as many as 6,600 units; and at Newport Center, where more than

1,200 units could be built. Condos and town houses are part of

several alternatives also.

* Mixed-use buildings with commercial space below and living space

above on the Balboa Peninsula, Corona del Mar and Old Newport

Boulevard.

* Expanded business uses including medical offices on Old Newport

Boulevard; up to 480 hotel rooms in Newport Center; small, boutique

hotels on Balboa Peninsula; and water-related businesses in Mariner’s

Mile.

In some cases the options for a single area vary widely. For

example, proposals for the 425-acre Banning Ranch property include

keeping the entire site as open space and building 1,765 housing

units and a small hotel.

Those plans, however, are only theoretical for now because only

about 75 acres of Banning Ranch is within city limits. To develop the

property, the owner could sign a pre-annexation agreement with the

city or go through county land-use authorities.

“I think which way they go on that will be influenced by what we

do on the general plan,” Assistant City Manager Sharon Wood said.

The various land-use options could generate up to $10.3 million

more for the city, mainly through property and sales taxes.

The committee will narrow the alternatives into one set of

proposals to be studied in greater detail and ultimately voted on by

the City Council.

It may also go to the ballot, but that will depend on the net

change in land use. Measure S, the city’s greenlight initiative,

requires a public vote on projects that add at least 1,000 dwelling

units, 100 peak-hour car trips, or 40,000 square feet more than the

existing general plan allows.

“We can’t answer that really specifically until we know what the

preferred land-use plan is, because we don’t know if we’re going to

cross any one of those thresholds,” Assistant City Manager Sharon

Wood said. “We’re assuming that it’s going to go to the ballot.”

Opposition to the general plan proposals is likely to come from

the Greenlight Committee, the slow-growth group that campaigned for

Measure S. Greenlight spokesman Phil Arst said even the existing

general plan should be scaled back, and the new proposals won’t help.

“They create too much traffic and change the character of the

city, particularly around the bay,” he said.

“We support developments that are a benefit to the city, such as

the medical offices at Hoag [Hospital], and we think the people

should have a choice as to what those [developments] are.”

Six intersections are already too clogged, by city standards, and

the general plan could worsen the wait time at as many as 12 more

intersections, Arst said.

Extensive street improvements would be needed to support the

development proposed in the general-plan update, and residents

clearly have said they don’t want more street widening, he said.

Wood said the public input will be incorporated into a recommended

plan that the ad hoc committee will consider July 16, and the

Planning Commission and City Council will discuss the plan at two

meetings in August.