EDITORIAL ENDORSEMENT:Measure X too restrictive of Newport development

As we have with previous Greenlight measures and votes, we oppose Measure X, the so-called Greenlight II ballot initiative, going before voters on Nov. 7. As this initiative is the strongest growth-control measure yet in Newport Beach, we also oppose it the most ardently.

Voters absolutely should vote against Measure X.

Six years ago, when the first Greenlight measure was on the ballot, we wrote, “The city needs to know there is a better option than Greenlight.” More important, we also noted, “Greenlight would render useless our representative government’s role of giving careful study to development plans and seeking compromises and consensus from builders.”

Greenlight II, we fear, would do all that and much, much worse. Unlike the first Greenlight initiative, Measure X would require voters to approve any development that added more than 100 dwelling units, 40,000 square feet or 100 peak-hour vehicle trips compared with what now exists rather than what is allowed for in the city’s general plan, which governs development and growth in the city.

That change creates a chilling level of restriction on development for a number of reasons.

A first trouble is that Measure X amounts to a taking away of development rights that the city now promises in the general plan. For instance, where today there may be allocations for a landowner to build an additional 50,000 square feet, under Greenlight II that construction would have to pass through a vote of the people. If the voters turned it down, it is no stretch to imagine the landowner suing the city — if the landowner even went to the trouble of going to a vote. This change to the law obviously is an attempt to circumvent the update to the general plan, which is on the same ballot as Measure V. It is a bad attempt, and any voter who believes in property rights, let alone fairness, should vote no on Measure X.

The second concern is that the limits are measured over a five-year period and actually could affect the smallest and most mundane of expansions to individual homes. It is not necessarily a big, 25,000- or 40,000-square-foot development that will trigger a vote. It could be a second-story addition in a neighborhood, which already had seen many other home or business expansions during the preceding five years, that suddenly has to go before the people.

This quirk to the law is, again, entirely unfair. One homeowner should not be the tipping point for a Greenlight vote.

As a matter of policy, and pending law, both of the above flaws are more than enough reason for voters to turn down Measure X. Greenlight II would be a bad law that could put the city at risk of having to defend untold numbers of lawsuits with mind-boggling monetary damages.

Even the most ardent of growth-control advocates must see that Greenlight II is not, in any way, a growth-control measure. It is a no-growth measure, plain and simple, and it is not in the best interest of this city.

There is a final reason for voters to vote no on Measure X, and it is the central reason we have been and remain opposed to Greenlight’s initiatives. It subverts our lasting and remarkably resilient system of representative government. We do not accept the argument that these measures give the power of decision-making back to the voters. Voters have that power, and they are able to exercise it when voting for candidates for the Newport Beach City Council. (This year, voters have the chance to vote for an unprecedented six of the council’s seven seats. That, indeed, is power to the people.)

If residents of Newport Beach do not like the kinds or number of developments that the City Council is approving, then they should vote in new members who will have a different attitude toward development.

But they should vote no on Measure X.