Meeting exclusion debated

Deirdre Newman

At the Central Newport Beach Community Assn. meeting tonight, members

will hear a presentation from a leading opponent of the Marinapark

hotel development.

Conspicuously absent will be Stephen Sutherland, the designer of

the hotel project.

The association is not inviting Sutherland to give a presentation

because the majority of the association members have twice voted

against a hotel for the Marinapark property, association president

Louise Fundenberg said.

Sutherland’s project now includes a 110-room luxury resort with

timeshares, along with community improvements such as relocating and

reconstructing the community center, the nearby Girl Scout house and

a harbor-side walkway.

The opposition to the development has coalesced around a park

project that mainly includes an aquatic center, a soccer and T-ball

field, plus 900 feet of beach, swimming and small-boat rowing and

sailing. Tom Billings, leader of the anti-hotel Protect our Parks,

will address the association about the park project.

Measure L on the November ballot will ask voters whether they want

to change the city’s general plan to accommodate the hotel

development.

Sutherland’s absence isn’t earning universal praise for the

association.

It’s not democratic to let association members hear only one side

of the issue, member Christine Dabbs said.

“Their refusal to allow both sides of the issue to be heard smacks

in the face of democracy,” said Dabbs, who lives on the Balboa

Peninsula between the two piers -- the area the association serves.

The city-owned, harbor-front property where the hotel would be

located -- on the peninsula between the American Legion and 18th

Street -- now accommodates a mobile-home park, four tennis courts, a

basketball half-court, a community center and 21 parking spaces.

Association members have twice voted against having a hotel on the

property, with a resounding 97% voting against it both times,

Fundenberg said.

“We want to keep the two elements of the Newport Beach general

plan as they are written -- recreation and open space land-use

elements,” Fundenberg said.

The association adopted policies in 1999 against any hotel

expansion or new hotel construction anywhere on their area of the

peninsula, Fundenberg added.

“We’re crowded enough as it is,” she said. “This is a dead-end

street. If [Sutherland] were building [his project] on private

property, we might be a little more lenient, but the fact he’s

building it on public property makes us really up in arms.”

Sutherland said the last time he was invited to speak to the

association members was three years ago, and his design has changed

considerably since then. The hotel/timeshares have been reduced from

156 rooms to 110 rooms. The parking will now be underground instead

of above ground. And more public access has been added to the

project, so residents can come to the beach and order food from the

restaurant, Sutherland said.

“These are important issues that I guarantee you will not come up

this Thursday night, because no one will be there to tell the other

side,” Sutherland said.

It’s disappointing that an association designed to serve the

community doesn’t heed the wishes of its minority members, Dabbs

said.

“People don’t have the opportunity to get the current information

if they’re not allowed to present it,” Dabbs said. “Ninety-seven

percent -- that leaves me out in the cold. If this is supposed to be

a community association serving the community, keeping someone out is

certainly not serving the community. It’s more like a political

stance, and I feel like I’m a member of the community, and I’m being

shut out.”

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers government. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].