Debating the Future Uses for El Toro
Doy Henley (“New Territory for Airport Debate,” Letters, Jan. 18) is well-known as a devoted advocate of turning El Toro into an international airport. What Henley apparently doesn’t know or refuses to understand is that the detachment of Planning Area 26A [an area of Irvine under development that Newport Beach would annex under an agreement] was vehemently opposed by Irvine residents.
1. No tangible benefit to Irvine has ever been identified for surrendering authority.
2. Residents of Irvine and Newport Beach strongly opposed detachment, albeit for different reasons.
3. Planning Area 26A includes designated open space. It is arguably illegal for the City Council to give jurisdiction of this open space to another governmental authority without approval of Irvine voters.
4. Changing the boundaries of what constitutes the city significantly alters both the integrated logic and integrity of the general plan. No boundary adjustment should be made without simultaneous approval of a general plan amendment. There has been no such amendment.
5. The only beneficiary from detachment is the Irvine Co., which gets to build a development of much greater density than would have been approved by the city of Newport Beach and then sell units approved in Irvine at Newport Beach market prices.
MARK PETRACCA, Irvine
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