Councilman warns voters about Greenlight

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- City Councilman Gary Adams pleaded with voters

Tuesday to reject a growth-control measure on the Nov. 7 ballot, calling

it a “bad law” that will have a stagnating effect on the city’s future.

“The apparent popularity of Measure S and the fact that it may pass

has me deeply troubled,” Adams said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

“As I see the momentum growing, based largely on scare tactics, I felt I

had to speak out.”

Adams’ comments followed statements by Councilmen Dennis O’Neil and

Tod Ridgeway at the Oct. 10 council meeting. O’Neil and Ridgeway lashed

out at council candidates in response to their comments that the current

council lacked unity and leadership.

Measure S supporters say similar sentiments about the City Council are

what inspired their initiative in the first place.

Measure S proposes to put before a citywide vote any development that

allows an increase of more than 100 peak-hour car trips or dwelling units

or 40,000 square feet over the general plan allowance.

Measure T would add parts of the city’s traffic phasing ordinance to

the City Charter and nullify Measure S, should voters approve both

measures.

While Adams said he agreed with the initiative’s underlying philosophy

of a sensible approach to development, he said the mechanisms the city

has in place do a better job at protecting Newport Beach from

irresponsible projects.

The “long and arduous” process of general plan amendments, which often

involve environmental impact reviews, is “in my view a clean and

equitable process that involves a tremendous amount of public

participation and is not influenced by outside forces,” Adams said.

Citing plans to expand Temple Bat Yahm as an example, Adams said that

forcing religious institutions to put their projects before a citywide

vote would be “awful.”

“People belonging to churches should think about how their donations

will have to be spent in the future,” Adams said.

Commenting on Adams’ remarks Wednesday, Measure S spokesman Phil Arst

said his group expects expansion projects for places of worship to pass

without problems.

The need to take church and synagogue expansions to the polls “would

be a small inconvenience,” Arst said, adding that the measure aims to

give residents a voice in deciding on about a dozen large construction

projects currently proposed.

“If I have to vote on a place of worship to stop a high-rise, that’s a

trade-off,” Arst said.

Adams also warned that asking all voters to make decisions on projects

could deter people from becoming involved in the city’s regular process

of reviewing proposals.

He suggested that if someone such as environmental activist Susan

Caustin were dissuaded from participating in the Dunes project

discussions, “the process has been irrefutably harmed.”

Caustin, a member of Stop the Dunes and a Measure S supporter, said

Wednesday that she would still participate in the city’s regular project

discussions should the measure pass.

“I will certainly be involved to make sure that the project that goes

before the voters is the best project that it could possibly be,” Caustin

said.

As an example of his concerns, Adams referred to the Newport Dunes

project, which would include a 470-room hotel and a 31,000-square-foot

convention center. He pointed out that the developers already had

permission to build a smaller project with 275 rooms.

By giving the developers a chance to propose their new project, Adams

said, the city could have a say in architectural design and access to the

site. If the developers would go ahead and build the project currently

allowed, the city could not influence it at all.

He added that by reducing the size of the new proposal by a “small

amount” of square footage, the developers could avoid taking the project

to a citywide vote.

Arst countered that the Dunes developers might be able to avoid a vote

by reducing the size of the project.

“But that would still get it down to a more reasonable size,” he said.

Adams also reminded residents that developers would be free to spend

unlimited amounts of money to fund campaigns for their projects.

“Anybody for the project can donate unlimited amounts,” he said. “They

will be a force to be reckoned with. The citizenry will make long-lasting

decisions based on hyperbole and spin, not based on thousands of pages of

environmental documents. I would rather see developers donating money to

charity.”

Arst said that projects without merit should not make it to a vote of

the people in the first place.

“If a project isn’t meritorious, then why doesn’t the council reject

it?” he said.

Plus, he said he thinks “voters are intelligent enough to see through

phony campaigning.”

Concluding his 20-minute remarks, Adams said that property owners

would be less likely to invest in Newport Beach if they knew they would

have to face an election.

“There will be no incentive to think outside the box,” he said. “Over

time, it is going to have a stagnating effect on our city. It will be a

sad day for our city if this measure passes on Nov. 7.”

Arst responded that prospective owners would know what they were

getting into.

“Property owners buy property based on the general plan and what

they’re entitled to,” he said, adding that some developers might be

deterred from making investments if they could not change the general

plan.

“It is the indifference of the council members to residents’ concerns

about overdevelopment that has fueled this impasse,” Arst said, adding

that the city’s 20-year-old traffic phasing ordinance had come about for

the same reasons. “The opposition predicted a similar set of dire

consequences then, and the [ordinance] has served us well. ... it is now

weakened and Measure S is needed to preserve our city now.”

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The Daily Pilot offers its views on Measures S and T. See Page A18.