A closer look -- The truest test of Greenlight

June Casagrande

NEWPORT BEACH -- At first, it appeared the biggest test of Greenlight

would be the November 2000 vote on the initiative itself.

Then, a year after 63% of the voters in that election approved

Greenlight, another vote came along, one that was hailed by many as “the

first test of Greenlight” -- the Measure G vote on the Koll Center office

expansion.

Now, with that project defeated 6,251 to 4,256 in November 2001, yet

another Greenlight battlefield has come into view.

Perhaps more than the last two battles, the city’s general plan update

process is cutting straight to the heart of the Greenlight debate. As

such, it could prove to be, if not the final, perhaps the biggest

showdown on the slow-growth initiative.

The process of updating the city’s general plan is expected to be long

and very involved. The document, not updated since 1988, is a

comprehensive, detailed outline of official goals and guidelines for just

about every aspect of the city: development, airport expansion, tourism,

coastal access, environment, arts and almost anything else imaginable.

For proposed developments, it outlines for each area in the city exactly

how large a project can be and what traffic impacts it’s allowed to

bring.

City officials have done an impressive job of communicating to

residents the importance of citizen input. A festival to kick off the

process of gathering public input, dubbed the “visioning process,” drew

hundreds more residents than officials had hoped for.

The 11-member General Plan Update Committee, composed of elected

officials and prominent community members, has headed up the task of

appointing members to the citizens’ body, the General Plan Advisory

Committee. Breaking all records in recent memory, the city received

applications from 252 residents who wanted to serve on the committee.

The resident body will have a huge influence on the city’s revisions

to the general plan, but its power is only the power of suggestion. Its

members are charged only with the tasks of interpreting input gathered

from residents and making recommendations to the update committee and the

City Council.

And, though selecting members of the citizen committee is just one of

many steps in the years-long process of updating the document, this one

step has nonetheless exploded in controversy -- almost all of it directly

related to Greenlight.

From the moment the first applications started coming in, Greenlight

members have struggled over the composition of what ultimately became a

38-member committee.

The first split occurred over the question of age when Greenlight

spokesman Phil Arst took the council to task for asking applicants’ ages.

Acknowledging that the practice was legal, Greenlighters nonetheless

believed it violated the spirit of nondiscrimination.

Officials defended the practice, arguing that age was one of many

factors they must consider in order to get a good cross section of the

entire community.

That debate, added to comments in a speech by Mayor Tod Ridgeway in

January, could reflect or even foster a rift in the city between old and

young -- a view that labels older residents as anti-change and

anti-growth and younger people as more welcoming of projects that could

create jobs and stimulate the economy and community alike.

“You can’t have it both ways,” Adams told Arst at Tuesday’s council

meeting. “You can say it was wrong to ask age, then say there should be

more older residents on the committee.”

But, as the age issue faded from the foreground of the General Plan

Advisory Committee appointment process in recent weeks, Greenlight

support became a central question.

At the same council meeting, Arst alleged that 12 of the 52 nominees

to the committee were either developers or otherwise professionally

involved in development.

“For 25% to have a pro-development bias hardly means you’re

representing the majority,” he said.

Adams fired back that Arst was wrong to label some of those nominees

as “pro-development.”

“I submit that it’s quite possible that 63% of the people nominated

for this committee are Greenlight supporters,” Adams said. “It’s quite

possible.”

Ironically, Greenlight, which is hinged directly on the general plan,

has now caused the general plan to be hinged directly on Greenlight. The

slow-growth measure, which critics say is really a no-growth measure in

disguise, requires a vote of the people on any project large enough to

require an amendment to the general plan. As an indirect result, any

update to the general plan therefore must go to a Greenlight vote.

“We’d like nothing better than to march in step with you and support

this general plan,” Arst told council members.

Greenlight supporters emphasize that their goal is to give citizens

control over projects they feel could profoundly affect the community.

Many large projects in particular, they say, don’t benefit residents in

this already job-rich community. Instead, Greenlighters argue, such

projects can create jobs that will be filled by workers from outside the

city, attracting commuter traffic without benefiting residents.

Some, including the majority of the City Council, say Greenlighters go

too far. Mayor Tod Ridgeway, a professional developer, has made it his

mission to replace negative, knee-jerk connotations of development with

an understanding that some development is necessary to maintain the level

of city services. And other developments, he and others say, amount to an

investment in the community that enriches the city for years to come.

“No growth is not an option,” Ridgeway has noted on numerous

occasions.

But the question of what growth is an option under the new general

plan remains to be seen.

* June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .