Newport Council Votes to Join Freeway Agency

The creation of an agency that will oversee construction of the San Joaquin Hills freeway was assured Tuesday when the Newport Beach City Council agreed to join and to levy fees on new development to pay for the freeway.

Newport Beach was the critical fourth city needed to form the agency, which will be in charge of the financing and construction of the 14-mile freeway through the coastal foothills linking Interstate 5 near San Juan Capistrano to the Corona del Mar Freeway.

As in the case of many other cities, however, Newport Beach officials have specified that the road, envisioned by county engineers as a full freeway, should be designed as a scenic highway with a more limited number of lanes.

Already participating in the new authority are the county and the cities of San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano and Irvine. Laguna Beach and Costa Mesa held study sessions on the issue Tuesday, and Santa Ana, the last city within the area that would generate traffic on the new freeway, will discuss the issue Monday.

New development in Newport Beach is expected to raise about 7% of the fees collected to finance the San Joaquin Hills freeway, or about $11.8 million. Overall, development fees will provide slightly less than half the money needed to build the $350-million freeway, with the remainder coming from state and federal highway funds and other unspecified sources.

In a report to the council on the freeway issue, Public Works Director Benjamin Nolan said the freeway will substantially reduce congestion on city streets. Once the freeway is completed, he said, traffic volumes on Coast Highway in Corona del Mar would be reduced by 15,000 cars per day, with reductions of 14,000 cars on MacArthur Boulevard and up to 10,000 cars per day on Jamboree Road.

While the city still has some concerns about the precise location of freeway interchanges and connector streets, those concerns will be worked out during detailed environmental studies of the new freeway, Nolan said.

The Newport Beach council Tuesday also appointed Councilwoman Evelyn R. Hart as its representative on the agency.

A similar agency was formed last month for the proposed Foothill and Eastern freeways in eastern Orange County.