Measure V puts city plans in voters’ hands

On Nov. 7, Newport Beach voters will face a number of challenging decisions about the future of their city. Topping the list will be whether to support or reject Measure V, an update to the city’s general plan.

Considered a blueprint for the next 20 years of development, the general plan lays out what kind of buildings will be allowed and where, how much traffic they’ll generate, and how the city will handle it. City officials and volunteers have worked for more than three years to create the plan, which hasn’t had a major overhaul since 1988.

Normally, the City Council would decide on general plan changes, but in 2000 city voters approved Measure S — also known as Greenlight — which requires a public vote on any change that adds more than 100 dwelling units, 40,000 square feet of building space or 100 peak-hour car trips.

Over the next several days, the Daily Pilot will explore pivotal issues concerning the general plan update.

With formal opposition to Measure V coming from the Greenlight residents group, one of the most-debated questions is whether the new general plan would add or subtract traffic trips to city streets.

Measure V supporters maintain the plan will reduce car trips by 30,000 trips per day. Opponents say it will add more than 120,000 trips a day. So which side is right?

In a word, neither. Because of changes in the amount and type of development allowed, the updated general plan would result in 30,467 fewer car trips per day than the existing general plan, with 965,711 trips a day in the old plan and 935,244 trips in the new plan. But those numbers of trips are projections that assume everything allowed in both plans actually was built.

It’s true that either plan would allow more car trips than the existing 803,993 daily trips (as reported in a 2005 city study). But approving the new plan wouldn’t ensure the full number of possible car trips would happen, because it doesn’t guarantee any future residential or commercial development will actually be built.

At that point, the arguments from both sides begin to call for judgments about how much development is inevitable and how much is too much.

City Councilman Steve Rosansky, who signed the ballot argument in favor of Measure V, said he’s telling people the plan will reduce daily car trips in Newport by 30,000 trips a day. He disputed the argument that they’re only “paper trips.”

The existing general plan allowed development that was never built, partly because of a real estate recession during the last 18 years, Rosansky said.

Now that the market is healthier, he said, “as long as there’s someplace to build, developers will build.”

Officials have said a certain amount of the traffic is unavoidable because it comes from elsewhere. City figures also showed under the new general plan, as much as 56% of traffic would come from outside the city.

Greenlight residents’ group leader Phil Arst said less traffic would come from outside Newport if new large office complexes weren’t allowed.

He likened the pro-Measure V argument about trip reduction to buying a boat:

“If I went out and said I’m going to buy a boat for $1 million, then I decided I’m just going to spend $50,000 — and then I go out and tell my friends I saved $950,000.”

Most of the traffic is either starting or ending in Newport, Arst said, pointing to a 2003 study that showed less than 10% of traffic on several major corridors was passing through the city rather than stopping in Newport.

If developments in the current general plan haven’t been built after 20 years, he said, “it’s because there’s no market for them” — which means they shouldn’t be factored into a so-called reduction of car trips.

QUESTION

Does Measure V do enough to reduce traffic? Call our Readers Hotline at (714) 966-4664 or send e-mail to dailypilot@latimes.com. Please spell your name and tell us your hometown and phone numbers for verification purposes only.