Understanding may be missing a bit at Lower Bayview

Re: the Community Commentary: “Senior housing project is worthy of

resident support,” by Mayor Steve Bromberg, Sunday, and the Letter to

the Editor, also June 8, by Parks Commissioner Debra Allen, regarding

Bayview Landing.

I would like to clear up some misunderstandings and clarify the

positions of myself, Stop Polluting Our Newport and Earth Resource

Foundation in the history of the Bayview Landing project.

The Community Commentary by Stephanie Barger of Earth Resource

Foundation on June 4 was accurate. Prior to the Feb. 25 City Council

meeting, both Stop Polluting Our Newport and the foundation wrote

letters to Steve Badum, the Newport Beach public works director,

expressing support for the senior housing project and park plan as it

was presented by Newport Beach staff at a Park Development Committee

meeting on Jan. 21. This plan called for the senior housing in its

current configuration and restoration of native coastal sage scrub

and grassland on the upper park site with an ornamental border along

Coast Highway and Jamboree. This was depicted on a city-generated

graphic that was presented to the Stop Polluting Our Newport Steering

Committee and approved. It was the basis for the staff recommendation

for approval at the Feb. 25 City Council meeting. Unfortunately, the

parks commissioners at the meeting asked for a different parks plan

calling for irrigation and turf grass, and the City Council went

along with the request, directing the park part of the plan to go

back to the Parks, Beaches and Recreation Commission for more public

input and jeopardizing the understandings and representations that

led to support of the plan by myself, Stop Polluting Our Newport and

the foundation.

The reason why I, Stop Polluting Our Newport and the foundation

supported the overall project was that it allowed for development of

the senior housing project while mitigating for the environmental

damage that was created by the plan, namely the cutting away of the

bluff, slope and natural meadow grassland. Nearly 100% of the

landform was going to be altered, scraped, graded and reshaped,

including a four-acre hillside area that was identified as coastal

sage scrub in 1992 and containing the gnatcatcher, a threatened

species of bird, and the top seven to 10 feet of the natural coastal

bluff above the Dunes that contained sensitive native plant species.

Stop Polluting Our Newport and the foundation supported the plan

because the natural areas would be replaced and 100% restored with

native vegetation, involving no turf grass except the ornamental

border and minimum grading. Newport Beach staff supported this plan

and presented it as such at the Feb. 25 City Council meeting.

This was a win-win plan, and support for the plan was given by us

at the Feb. 25 City Council meeting. It seemed rational that the

sensitive environmental resources that were being removed would be

replaced. Native plant restoration provides superior habitat for

wildlife, requires less water than turf grass parks, produces less

pollution from fertilizers and pesticides in the runoff into Newport

Bay and generally is more compatible with the ecologic resources of

Newport Bay, which the Bayview Landing site is adjacent to.

What might not be apparent to the casual observer is that the plan

proposed for the Lower Bayview Landing site involving the senior

housing part of the project is now taking away a large portion of the

hillside which was, and still is, part of the Upper Bayview Landing

site. That is, the Lower Bayview Landing is now expanded into the

Upper Bayview Landing, requiring a change in lot lines to accommodate

the larger senior housing project that is now proposed. Originally,

the Lower Bayview Landing was slated for 120 units. Because of the

increase to 150 units, the project had to take a large bite out of

the Upper Bayview Landing hillside. In compensation, the city

acquired the corner of Back Bay Drive and the entrance to the Dunes

to serve as a detention basin for runoff from the housing project and

the park. This was portrayed as a fair trade.

Meanwhile, the last-minute change in plans for the project

occasioned by the Feb. 25 City Council meeting raised concerns that

the environmental resources of the site would be lost after all. It

so happened that a Daily Pilot reporter asked that I meet him at the

site for a photograph because of an article he was writing on the

archeological resources of the site. During this wet visit, I

observed what looked to me like wetlands vegetation on the lower

site, and I commented as such. After the meeting that raised the

specter of loss of natural resources and abrogation of the

understanding underlying the staff report, I revisited the site and

confirmed that several areas of the site should qualify as protected

wetlands.

On March 10, as a matter of public record, I wrote a letter to the

Coastal Commission expressing my concerns about Coastal Act policies

regarding wetlands and the other natural resources of the site,

having more than 20 years of experience dealing with Coastal Act

issues involving resources such as Newport Bay, Bolsa Chica and the

Huntington Beach Wetlands, among others. The last paragraph of this

letter states:

“Thank you for your consideration. I have consistently supported

the plan for senior affordable housing on Lower Bayview Landing, and

the view park on Upper Bayview Landing. However, the specifics of

adherence to Coastal Act policies need further consideration and

modification to the project as I have enumerated above.”

At no time have I expressed opposition to the plan for senior

affordable housing on Lower Bayview Landing. I have promoted this

site for senior affordable housing for several years, going back to

when the senior housing was being pushed for the site above the

library. I still believe a suitable senior affordable housing project

will be built on the Lower Bayview Landing site.

However, I did not manufacture the wetlands. They are there and

were confirmed by the Coastal Commission staff biologist. They need

to be reckoned with and mitigated, same as for the native vegetation

on the rest of the site. The Memorandum of Understanding was a mutual

attempt by myself, the foundation and the city attorney and staff to

come to agreement as to how we could win Coastal Commission approval,

despite a Coastal Commission staff recommendation that the project be

denied for five separate Coastal Act violations, including policies

relating to wetlands, water quality, landform alterations, scenic

resources and public access including parking for the park.

Contrary to the mayor’s assertions, the development of the

memorandum was not a quid pro quo. It was a document that was

discussed at a meeting at City Hall involving the city attorney, an

attorney retained by the city, a city staff member, several emails at

1 a.m. and a detailed discussion, paragraph by paragraph, at a Stop

Polluting Our Newport Steering Committee meeting. No one told anyone

what to do. It was an amicable negotiation involving good faith

efforts by city staff, Stop Polluting Our Newport and the foundation

to reach a consensus to achieve the twin goals of a senior affordable

housing project on the site, and a specific native plant park

restoration that would succeed and would be monitored, with parking

for the public.

However, to everyone’s surprise, the council rejected the

memorandum summarily at a special meeting early one Wednesday

morning. No one knows why the council members were so vehement in

their rejection. Perhaps the reasons can be gleaned from the mayor’s

article, but I’m not sure the mayor thoroughly read the memorandum.

The memorandum dealt with both the senior housing element and the

wetlands mitigations on the lower site, and the park, coastal bluff,

grading and native plant mitigations on the upper site.

The memorandum was a blueprint for cooperation between the city

and its residents in preparing for the Coastal Commission. This kind

of public/private cooperation is needed and should be encouraged as a

matter of good governance.

* JAN VANDERSLOOT is a Newport Beach resident.