Marinapark discussion goes silently

June Casagrande

Pretty much every time the Regent Newport Beach Resort comes up in

City Council, you can bank on some surprises.

Last year’s vote on whether to initiate the process for

considering the resort at the site of the Marinapark mobile home

park, a routine step that neither approves nor endorses developments,

almost stopped the project cold when three council members voted no.

More surprising, one of them was Tod Ridgeway, who has supported

investment on the Balboa Peninsula and whom critics paint as the

quintessential pro-development councilman.

Tuesday’s council vote on whether to adopt changes to the

development plans for the project brought the most surprising

surprise to date: relative silence.

Aside from a small cast of key players, no residents spoke on the

project or used the council vote as an opportunity to address the

larger question of whether the resort should be built.

In relative peace and quiet, council members voted unanimously to

accept the revised plans, which reduce to 110 the number of guest

rooms.

The silence may be due in part to the fact that council members

have already decided that voters will have to approve the project in

an upcoming election, most likely in November 2004, and that an

environmental study must be done.

“We are delighted that this will be going to a vote of the

people,” said Greenlight spokesman Phil Arst, who wound up engaged in

a debate on whether the project would have gone to a Greenlight vote

had the council not decided to initiate the ballot.

Arst said he believed the project would have triggered Measure S;

developer Stephen Sutherland said it wouldn’t.

“The public is probably going to hear more about this project than

any other project in the city,” Mayor Steve Bromberg said, assuring

residents that the process will include numerous public workshops and

opportunities for residents to register their feelings. “If this were

a Greenlight vote, the scrutiny would not be even close to the

scrutiny it will receive under this process.”

Though Greenlight has opted not to take a position on the project

itself, a number of Arst’s points might have led observers to believe

that Greenlight surely won’t be a cheerleader for the project either.

Tom Hyans, president of the Central Newport Beach Assn., implored

council members to include in the official documentation references

to Las Arenas Park, a portion of which the luxury resort will

replace.

Sutherland said that much of what’s there now will still be there

when the resort’s in place: He will replace the four tennis courts

there and build a new Girl Scout house on the site. Half of the

basketball court now at the Las Arenas Park will not be replaced.