The Region - News from Aug. 21, 1987

A judge ruled that the government of affluent Newport Beach has not violated state or federal law prohibiting discrimination in housing, a decision hailed by city officials as preserving local control over zoning. Low-income residents had challenged city ordinance and zoning practices as discriminatory in the 7-year-old lawsuit, which cost the city $1.2 million, involved 11 months of trial and 15,000 pages of transcript and 1,400 exhibits. Lawyers challenging the city had hoped the case would produce more stringent constitutional safeguards for equal housing standards, but Mayor Pro Tem Evelyn R. Hart called it “a trumped-up charge.” The city’s position, said City Manager Robert L. Wynn, was that “land values in Newport Beach . . . were difficult to work around to provide large amounts of moderate- or low-cost housing.” Newport Beach has spent about $2.5 million in the last five years subsidizing developers who want to provide low- to moderate-income housing, resulting in the construction of 166 units of low-income housing. Newport Beach has a population of 70,000 with an estimated median household income of $59,462, compared to $42,564 for Orange County as a whole.