Slow-growth advocates press on for ballot measure

NEWPORT BEACH ? Facing a Tuesday deadline for signature gathering, supporters of the slow-growth group Greenlight made a final push this weekend to try to get their proposal on the city’s November ballot.

Greenlight II, as the initiative is known, would give voters more control over development than its predecessor, Measure S, which voters passed in 2000. Measure S is informally named for the group that created it, the Greenlight committee.

The 2000 measure requires a public vote on development proposals that would exceed what the city’s general plan allows by any of three criteria: 100 housing units, 100 peak hour car trips per day, or 40,000 square feet of building space.

The new ballot proposal would lower the threshold for voter approval, so any project that exceeds existing development by one of the three criteria would need a public vote.

The issue’s proponents need 6,056 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Greenlight supporters have been circulating petitions for about six months and will turn them in to the city clerk Tuesday.

The Orange County Registrar of Voters earlier this month declared another Newport citizen-backed initiative didn’t have enough valid signatures to make the ballot, so Greenlight upped its goal, spokesman Phil Arst said. The group is hoping to finish with between 8,000 and 8,500 signatures.

“We’re trying hard in the last few days to go over the top,” said Jan Vandersloot, a supporter who was gathering signatures Saturday at Westcliff Plaza.

Many shoppers ignored Vandersloot and his card table, but a few stopped to talk and add their names to the petition.

“They’ve just had more and more developments,” said Paul Fulton, a 43-year resident who signed. “It’s not the little vacation town it used to be.”

If the measure makes it to the ballot, supporters will try to convince voters that a proposed general plan update will devastate city streets, allowing development that could increase traffic by as many as 200,000 car trips per day.

The group expects opposition from developers. In the city’s costliest campaign to date, Greenlight opponents spent $720,000 trying to defeat the 2000 initiative, with more than half of the money chipped in by the Irvine Co.

“I would be shocked if they wouldn’t do that” this time around, said Phil Drachman, who also was collecting signatures over the weekend. “I think this time they’ll probably spend over a million dollars.”

While city officials won’t campaign against Greenlight, they will urge support for the general plan update, which they’ve worked on for several years. It’s the first major overhaul the city’s development plan has had since 1988, and it is also expected to be on the November ballot.