Commentary: Development threatens quality of life in Newport Beach

When is enough, enough?

Citizens of Newport Beach, wake up before it is too late. Your quality of life is threatened.

We have a City Council and management that has a growth agenda. It seems like they’ve rarely meet a developer or project that they hadn’t supported.

Every project is welcomed with open arms, sometimes with taxpayer money to grease the skids. It seems there is no problem with changing height restrictions or zoning to accommodate new development.

The population of Newport is now around 87,000. Current projects already in development, plus the city-supported Banning Ranch and Back Bay proposals, could take us much higher, maybe even above the 100,000 mark, with not enough improvements in necessary infrastructure, i.e. roads, schools and emergency services. Those could come in the form of new bonds or taxes sometime down the road.

Traffic on the peninsula, Coat Highway, Superior Road and the 55 freeway is already gridlocked at rush hour. It is only going to get much worse, yet city planners consistently state that each individual project will not have significant impact.

Unless there is public pressure they will not stop until every square inch of land is developed, until every foot of the harbor front and the Back Bay is lined with three-story condo boxes, until we look like Marina Del Rey.

I never thought I would utter the words, “Thank god for the Coastal Commission,” but without its oversight we would have some 1,235 new dwellings, instead of what will most likely end up as 850 dwellings, on Banning Ranch. It’s important to note that our city at one point supported as many as 2,000 new dwellings on the same property.

As part of the Banning Ranch development agreement, 15% or 125 units, is required to be low-income housing, of which 50% or a minimum of 60 units, will be off site in other areas of the city. Hence the recent rush and theatrics to get the Newport Shores AFH project in place. You can count on more of the same coming to your neighborhood soon.

If you share the same concern, get involved now, support candidates for City Council who have a vision of limited and responsible growth, and who will actually follow the city charter. Attend City Council meetings, voice your opinions even though it most likely will fall on deaf ears.

If you don’t get involved and engaged now you forfeit the right to complain about the traffic, congestion and cost we will suffer in the near future.

GARY REASONER lives in Newport Beach.