Planning by Ballot Box, or Elected Officials?

* In your “Growth on the Ballot” editorial (Oct. 29), you say the measures that would supposedly restrict development are “ballot-box planning” and that they would undermine our city planners and elected representatives. Are you kidding? On the matter of representative democracy, which is being killed in America by the greed of special-interest groups, I give you two words: Thomas Jefferson.

Lives there a politician (or a newspaper) in Southern California who can say no to developers? Rampant “planned” growth is consuming us. The flaw in these measures is not that they would restrict growth, slightly, it’s that they can’t restrict it enough. Could we leave something more than a couple of postage stamp-sized parks?

As for your assertion that San Clemente restricts residential building permits to 500 per year, that restriction must have lasted all of two minutes. And as for the poor development industry’s crying about not being able to provide the American dream for young people: another sad joke.

What dream? They build 3,000-square-foot, $400,000 behemoths on tiny lots. In 10 or 15 years they’ll be making millions converting these monsters to apartments and condos. And we’ll be left lamenting the past, the lost beauty of the great place we failed to appreciate or protect.

STEVE JORGENSEN

Dana Point

* The editorial decries planning by the ballot box, but misses the big picture of the issues involved in the Newport Beach election.

The city recently has had its normally protective Traffic Phasing Ordinance Law materially weakened by a special-interest-dominated City Council. Immediately following this open sesame to overbuilding in the city, a dozen major projects appeared and were being pushed through the city review and approval process.

The Greenlight Measure S initiative was developed in response. It has carefully targeted the following three major issues that rise above the simplistic solution advocated by The Times:

1. Is planning by ballot box a better alternative than no planning at all? Newport Beach does not have an updated general plan and all of the dozen major projects would have dumped in excess of 50,000 auto trips a day on streets that had not been planned for such an occurrence.

2. Should Newport Beach preserve its natural beach/bay character and be a recreation city for all or become a high-rise business center with multiple large hotels ringing its waterfront? The certain approval of these dozen projects before Greenlight was initiated would have added several major hotels to the city’s bayfront, starting the cycle of ringing it with hotels. Other projects would have added five high-rise office buildings to the city and in combination with the hotels, initiate its transformation into another Marina del Rey.

3. What is the best approach to campaign reform to take our government back from special interests? We don’t have representative government in Newport Beach. In this and previous elections, City Council candidates favored by the special interests (developers, Chamber of Commerce) have had many times the campaign funds of those supported by residential groups such as Greenlight. Once elected, just as in Washington and Sacramento, these new council members generally give first consideration to those who paid to get them elected. In the case of today’s Measure S initiative, developers have spent $387,000 to try to defeat it against approximately $38,000 raised and spent by residents to date. Measure S will help to remedy this aberration of our democratic process.

Measure S may not be perfect, but it is the best solution we have. It will force the city government to do its job and prepare a proper updated general plan that will eliminate the need for Measure S. Upon its approval by the voters, there will be no need for any more ballot box planning, as the projects all will have been approved; adequate street capacity will have been provided; the character of Newport Beach will have been maintained as its residents desired; and local government will have shed its special interest shackles and become more responsive to its people.

PHILIP L. ARST

Corona del Mar

* On election day, if you live in Newport Beach you will have the opportunity to vote on an initiative, Measure S, to limit growth. Its purpose, declare its proponents, is to reduce the traffic by slowing or stopping growth within city limits. Voters will be able to limit growth by their ability to disapprove future projects at the ballot box.

If you think you can stop people coming to the beach or you simply don’t like developers, you should vote for Measure S. It may make you feel good, but one thing you can be certain of: It won’t reduce today’s traffic in Newport Beach and it won’t stop additional traffic from future growth. It will cause the community to become more divided and it will cost residents of Newport more in taxes to pay for the elections and lawsuits filed over property rights.

The streets in industrial complexes are the best in America. They are sized for peak hours. The major arterial roads, (Jamboree, MacArthur and the Costa Mesa Freeway), leading from the industrial complexes in central Orange County to Pacific Coast Highway in Newport are wider and specially designed with limited access.

People living up and down the coast from Newport, those who work in the central part of the county, find it convenient, if not absolutely necessary, to use those three primary arteries to go to and from work. Unfortunately, their numbers, passing through Newport, are truly staggering and they continue to grow as more and more workers from up and down the coast get jobs in the new business parks being developed by cities in the central part of the county. Newport cannot stop or slow the industrial development in those cities any more than they can stop the building of more houses in the coastal cities above and below.

Measure S will not help solve the problem of rush hour traffic through Newport Beach. If those advocating Measure S, ballot box planning over representative government, would instead help work for practical solutions, they could be part of the solution.

GIL FERGUSON

Balboa Island