Slow-Growth Forces React to Rival’s Defection

A decision by the president of a pro-growth group in Newport Beach to resign and join slow-growth advocates indicates that the development “pendulum has swung too far,” a member of Stop Polluting Our Newport said Saturday.

SPON member Jean Watt said last week’s resignation of Chriss Street, former president of the pro-development Executive Council, did not surprise her.

“Individuals are beginning to realize that they disagree on what is happening around them,” Watt said. “It is really not too surprising.”

But John Gardner, of Newport 2000, a political action committee also favoring slow growth, had a different reaction to Street’s move. “We were kind of floored,” he said.

Street met with Gardner and Watt on Wednesday and gave them a copy of a letter he had written, but apparently not yet delivered, to members of his 40-member Executive Council.

“As far as I know,” Watt said, “that was the first anyone knew of what Street was planning to do.”

In the letter, Street said the “lunatic fringe” of pro-growth developers had gained control of local government. “We began as a true cross-section of the community whose goals were continuity and progress,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, we have been over-successful at influencing the system toward progress and now find that the local officials are blazing a trail for the lunatic fringe of maximized development.”

Street, who was thought to be in Arizona, could not be reached for comment.

Gardner said the fact that a neighbor of Street wanted to add extensively onto his property apparently nudged Street to the slow-growth stance. Development was “going on right next to him,” Gardner said.

“He (Street) said the plundering of his Corona del Mar neighborhood was upsetting him.”

Street’s letter complained that officials were “desecrating local neighborhoods” by allowing pro-growth developers variances in zoning laws.

Last year, SPON, Newport 2000 and Gridlock, another slow-growth organization, forced a special election to block an expansion of Newport Center that had been approved by the City Council. The vote in the Nov. 25 election was 11,390 against expansion and 8,260 in favor, with a 43% voter turnout.

Last Thursday, the groups announced a petition drive for an initiative to halt the development of a nine-story complex near John Wayne Airport.