Plan update about to get the green light

After a final public meeting to be held Tuesday, Newport Beach’s general plan will be headed for the November ballot.

The plan, which city officials called “a comprehensive blueprint for the future of Newport Beach,” lays out how much development and what kinds will be allowed around the city. It updates the existing plan, which hasn’t had a major overhaul since 1988.

By changing how much development can occur, the general plan would: boost the number of residential units that could be built in Newport by 1,166 units, decrease the amount of nonresidential building space that could be added by 514,498 square feet, and shrink the expected future number of peak-hour car trips city-wide by 1,157 trips in the morning and 998 trips in the evening.

It’s going to the ballot because of Measure S, the law passed in 2000 that requires a public vote on changes to the general plan that add more than 100 dwelling units, 40,000 square feet of building space, or 100 peak-hour car trips.

Major changes include adding mixed-use zoning to Mariner’s Mile, which has had little residential development in the past; allowing new residential developments in the John Wayne Airport area; and permitting medical office space in West Newport Mesa near Hoag Hospital.

“The plan reduces daily trips by almost 30,000,” City Councilman Steve Rosansky said. “We’ve cut out close to a million and a half square feet of commercial entitlement in the city.”

The plan also sets policies that say, for example, that the city will work to ensure high water quality and protect residents’ quality of life. It cuts in half the number of housing units that could be built at Banning Ranch and creates the opportunity for environmental groups to purchase some of it as open space.

Critics of the general plan ? such as the Greenlight committee, which backed Measure S ? say it won’t really cut traffic and simply shifts building entitlements around so that view-blocking condos and other private developments will crowd the coastline.

A Greenlight-backed ballot measure that will appear in November would require a public vote on major development projects but could also affect some residential properties.

But others said those who grouse about what the city is allowing should have gotten involved in the update.

Evelyn Hart, a key signer of the original Greenlight initiative, said she didn’t get involved with the group’s latest ballot proposal because she wanted to give the city’s process a chance.

“I still want to have confidence that the City Council’s going to come up with a good general plan that’s going to work,” she said. “I just wasn’t sure that we needed another Greenlight and that’s why I’m not involved.”

A city report showed close to 3,200 residents had input on the plan, with 38 people serving on a general plan ad hoc committee and 18 planning commission and City Council meetings addressing the plan.

The next step is a citywide campaign of voter education and support for the general plan, and one participant will be the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber president Richard Luehrs said his organization will help get information out to voters, because “we just don’t think that they’re aware of the general plan update process.”

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