Greenlight leaders ready to give Koll red light

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- Koll Center officials will have to brace for more

opposition to their 250,000-square-foot expansion project after

Greenlight leaders announced Friday that they will campaign against the

development.

The project, which includes a 10-story office tower and two parking

structures, is expected to go before voters in the fall since it triggers

a Greenlight election.

The city’s new slow-growth law, approved by voters last November,

requires elections for projects that add more than 40,000 square feet or

100 peak-hour car trips or dwelling units to what’s allowed under the

general plan.

City Council members already approved the expansion at their June 26

meeting and will vote on a zoning amendment and development agreement for

a second time July 10.

Phil Arst, Greenlight’s spokesman, said the project would create

significant traffic problems and city leaders failed to address the

problem. He added that city officials had pointed out in reports that the

expansion would create “significant and unavoidable” traffic problems.

Council members said a payment by Koll officials of an extra $2

million in traffic funds on top of $1.16 million in mandatory fees had

made it possible to approve the project nonetheless.

“We wanted to see if the City Council would heed the voters and

clearly they have not,” Arst said. “They’ve flunked the test and we will

be at the July 10 council meeting to represent the wishes of the city.”

Members of the watchdog group did not comment on the project while it

made its way through planning commission hearings and the first council

hearing.

While not referring to the Greenlight committee, Mayor Gary Adams

worried that residents would remain quiet during public hearings and

simply oppose projects at the polls.

“If this is the way Greenlight works -- that is, no one participating

in the entitlement process because they are waiting for a political

campaign to make their voice heard -- my worst fears about the measure

are being realized,” Adams, who opposed Greenlight, wrote in a recent

letter to Newport Beach residents Ron and Anna Winship, who had told him

they opposed the Koll expansion.

“If public input on general plan amendments is limited to a discreet

‘yes’ or ‘no’ at the ballot box, our planning process has been seriously

corrupted by Greenlight,” he continued. “If you have concerns about

traffic in this area, why haven’t you said something until now?”

But Arst said he felt his group’s silence until now had not

compromised the city’s planning process.

“We proved the need for Greenlight,” he said. Council members “did do

their thing and their thing was to pass something with traffic

congestion.”

In an unrelated matter, Arst added that the group was also leaning

toward opposing a proposed luxury hotel resort for the city-owned

Marinapark site on Balboa Peninsula, which would trigger a Greenlight

election as well.

That project, which city officials will present to residents during a

meeting today, is a long way from getting to the polls and still needs to

go through city reviews and public hearings.

FYI

City Council members are expected to cast their final votes on the

Koll project during their meeting on Tuesday.

The public forum on the Marinapark hotel project happens today.

Both meetings begin at 7 p.m. and take place at City Hall, 3300

Newport Blvd.