Newport Council Sends Hotel to Voters

A proposed 110-room resort on the Balboa Peninsula must be approved by voters but will not have to meet the public disclosure requirements of the city’s Greenlight initiative, Newport Beach council members decided.

The resort would replace a mobile-home park on publicly owned bay-front property.

At a meeting that went beyond midnight Tuesday, the council’s pro-development majority, by a 6-1 vote, said the proposed Regent Newport Beach Resort does not fall under the city’s Greenlight provisions.

Voters overwhelmingly adopted Greenlight three years ago to require that major developments win ballot approval. The measure requires votes on all projects that add more than 40,000 square feet of building space, 100 peak-hour car trips or 100 homes above what is allowed by the city’s general plan. It also subjects projects to more stringent disclosure rules.

But Mayor Steve Bromberg argued that a vote on the resort’s fate will meet the spirit of Greenlight. The vote is scheduled for November 2004.

“The council is not approving this project now or in the future,” said Bromberg. “All we’re saying is that this project is going to a vote.”

Philip Arst, a Greenlight spokesman, complained that the council action allows the project to avoid scrutiny. “This is a cop-out for the council,” Arst said.

For 15 years, Newport Beach officials have tried to close Marinapark Mobile Home Park, the site of 56 mobile homes on some of the choicest city-owned property on the Balboa Peninsula. Residents live there under one-year leases.

Newport Beach developer Stephen Sutherland has scaled down the resort to 110 rooms from 156. He contended the project was not subject to the Greenlight initiative, and Bromberg agreed, citing advice of the city attorney that hotels are exempt.

Newport Beach is the only city in Orange County -- and one of only a few in the state -- to require special votes on major development projects that exceed general plan guidelines.

Five years ago, the City Council voted to allow a hotel on the site, which previously had been zoned for open-space recreation.

Councilman Richard Nichols, a Greenlight advocate, cast the single vote in opposition. Councilman John Heffernan, also a Greenlight supporter, voted with the majority, even though he said it was a confusing issue. Heffernan said the city was obligated to the developer to resolve the issue.

As a result of the vote, the city will now prepare an environmental impact review, at the developer’s expense, and a fiscal impact analysis.

Sutherland said he plans an aggressive campaign to win voter approval.

A citizen’s group complained the city has spent $400,000 on surveys that have found the resort is unsupported. In a poll of 1,000 people, about 70% opposed it.

If constructed, the resort is expected to generate $2.7 million annually in taxes and leases.