Story Of The Year - 2000: Park plans conjure activist’s lament

If realized, plans for a multimillion-dollar public park overlooking Newport Harbor may be the only lasting legacy of the Greenlight Initiative, said Allan Beek, who wrote the landmark 2000 ballot measure.

Newport Beach voters passed Measure S, also known as the Greenlight Initiative, in 2000. The ballot measure gave Newport Beach voters the power to approve or reject new, large-scale land development projects in their city.

A ballot measure known as Greenlight II, which would have put further restrictions on new land development in Newport Beach, failed in November 2006 by a 24% margin.

On the same 2006 ballot, Newport Beach voters approved an update of the city’s general plan, which included plans for future land development in the city, bypassing much of what Greenlight’s backers had intended the measure to do.

“People gave away their Greenlight vote. They have no voting ability anymore,” Greenlight resident group leader Phil Arst told the Daily Pilot after the 2006 election.

Arst died in 2008 of complications from an earlier liver transplant.

“It was a tragic event,” Beek said last week, reflecting on the 2006 election. “It was a developer’s wish list. It was like giving us all an automatic ‘yes’ vote on any future development.”

The Greenlight Initiative did manage to halt plans for a 110-room waterfront resort on a city-owned trailer park between Eighth Street and the American Legion Post on 15th Street.

Newport Beach voters rejected developer Stephen Sutherland’s plans for the luxury resort in November 2004.

Now the city has plans to build Marina Park, a new municipal park and sailing complex on the site that will include a 10,800-square-foot community center and a 11,200-foot sailing center with a cafe inside.

A new marina included in the plans would include electricity that visiting sailors could pay for with coin- and credit card-operated machines.

Plans for the park are expected to go before the California Coastal Commission for approval in the spring.

“At least it’s something,” Beek said.