Coast Is Clear for Project Along Shore

The only clues to the riches growing on Newport Coast are the 50-foot stucco-and-steel pillars that look like gold on Coast Highway.

Otherwise, motorists driving down the coast between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach would see only a hill of green stretching from the beach to Irvine. But these golden symbols are a gateway to a burgeoning community for the well-heeled.

And it is spreading along the shore and up the hill unimpeded. Having settled the protests of environmental groups 10 years ago, the Irvine Co., which owns the land, has quietly been developing the area--one of the last big open parcels along the state coastline--without much opposition or publicity.

The community has the makings of a city, with an elementary school, a fire station, several parks and playgrounds, two golf courses, four resorts, and a mix of 2,600 homes priced from $450,000 to as much as $20 million for a custom-designed home built on an ocean view lot. In a decade or so, there will be 8,000 residents, according to Irvine Co. predictions.

Of the 2,600 homes expected, 301 already built are custom-designed with an average of 8,000 square feet on bigger lots with better views. Half of those lots are owned by entrepreneurs in their early 40s, some of whom plunked down $1 million or more in cash to build their dream homes.

Other residents are not just rich, but famous too. Author Dean Koontz reportedly spent $4 million to buy 2 1/2 acres there and Dennis Rodman’s manager, Dwight Manley, has moved in.

“It’s a tremendous community, probably unrivaled anywhere else in Southern California,” said Jim McGee, 46, a lawyer who moved into a custom-built home 15 months ago with his wife and three children.

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In the years to come, thousands more homes and hotel rooms, sprinkled with a few shopping centers, are expected to dot the landscape.

However, a few conflicts threaten to soil the picture-perfect lifestyle that is taking root.

Residents in this new-money community are fighting attempts by Newport Beach to annex the development, which now sits on unincorporated county land. Parents in Laguna Beach oppose enrollment of an estimated 342 students expected from Newport Coast, fearing the new students will burden Laguna’s already crowded schools.

First proposed 34 years ago, Newport Coast was mired in legal wrangling for nearly two decades before scaling back its plans and agreeing to allocate more acres for open space.

But even its critics say Newport Coast has come a long way from earlier proposals to build 21,500 dwellings and a 10-story office tower on Coast Highway.

“That’s what you have to take into consideration--how much worse it could have been,” said Fern Pirkle, who founded Friends of the Irvine Coast 20 years ago to preserve as much open space in the area as possible.

Calling Newport Coast a development is like describing its neighbor, the 2,800-acre Crystal Cove State Park, as a playground. Already, there are roughly 2,000 cheerleaders for Newport Coast, who moved there within the last 18 months.

More than half of them like living there so much, they signed a petition opposing a move to annex the community into Newport Beach. Coast residents say Newport Beach wants their tax dollars and their community’s cachet but is unwilling to ease the tax burden incurred by the citizens of a new and wealthy community. Residents also are concerned that if annexed, Newport Coast would be fragmented between several City Council districts.

“There’s a huge faction here that says ‘Keep it all to ourselves,’ ” said Pat Havel, who moved from Newport Beach 18 months ago to a 3,500-square-foot Newport Coast home with ocean views.

Because Newport Coast sits on unincorporated county land, the only form of government can be found at meetings of the 19 homeowners associations.

Newport Beach officials, who estimate that they would gain $3 million in annual tax revenue if the area were annexed, are determined to resolve the dispute, said David Kiff, the assistant to the city manager in Newport Beach. City officials have met once with residents to discuss a compromise.

Unlike Newport Beach, Laguna Beach is not interested in the wealth and opulence of Newport Coast.

A sliver of the property sits within the Laguna Beach Unified School District but the school board is seeking to change that so the entire development would be served by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

A cadre of vocal parents, who oppose higher enrollments in Laguna Beach, pressured school officials to decline the Irvine Co.’s $6.6 million offer to build schools to ease crowding.

Steven Rabago, a Laguna Beach school trustee, met with Newport-Mesa officials on Wednesday to discuss redrawing district boundary lines, and two more meetings are scheduled for later this month.

“In principle, all parties are interested in making a boundary transfer,” Rabago said.

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Laguna school officials would like to retain the revenue-producing commercial property of Newport Coast that sits in their district. That includes a 25,000-square-foot shopping center, which could contain a restaurant or a spa, and as many as 250 time-share casitas, or villas.

These plans were approved years ago by the California Coastal Commission, which prefers development along the coast to have “visitor-serving” uses, such as restaurants or hotels. When it will be built, said Carol Hoffman, a vice president at the Irvine Co., depends solely on the real-estate market.

Despite Coastal Commission approval, the plans are under scrutiny by the Orange County Planning Commission, which must approve an environmental impact report. Public comments are accepted until March 30 on the plan for tourist services that will line Coast Highway, and alter the view from the fabled state road.

It still causes twinges among environmentalists.

“There’s definitely more than I’d like to see there on the coast,” said Elisabeth Brown, the executive director of the Laguna Greenbelt Inc., an environmental watchdog group.

But Brown, Pirkle and other environmentalists agreed to the greater density along the shore in exchange for 606 acres of open space in the Los Trancos Canyon, an environmentally sensitive area in Newport Coast. Over the years, the Irvine Co. has agreed to set aside more than 50% of the area as open space to ease development restrictions in the residential portions of the project.

The canyon issue was a compromise, just like the rest of Newport Coast. And that’s OK with the environmentalists.

“From our point of view, it has been made much more livable,” Pirkle said.

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The Hills Are Alive

The Irvine Co.’s Newport Coast development is quietly claiming one of Orange County’s largest open tracts, promising hundreds of homes and commercial establishments along the coastal hillsides between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach.

Newport Coast Profile

Homes: As many as 2,600, including 301 custom-designed on larger lots with ocean views already sold

Resort homes: Up to 2,150, which could be in hotels or time-share units

Land use: 7,343 acres of open space, including Crystal Cove State Park; 1,873 acres of residential development; 74 acres of tourist or commercial space

Current population: Estimated 2,000; expected 8,000 when development is completed, in 15 or 20 years

Famous residents: Author Dean Koontz; Angel pitcher Chuck Finley; Dennis Rodman’s manager, Dwight Manley