AT ISSUE: The Daily Pilot editorial on...

AT ISSUE: The Daily Pilot editorial on Thursday urged neighbors of

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church to refrain from casting church

leaders in a negative light over the proposal by the church to expand

parking for Newport Harbor High School. Here are a few of the

responses we received in rebuttal.

First, let me say St. Andrew’s is owed a debt of gratitude.

My youngest daughter just returned from the spring Mammoth trip,

sponsored by the church, and we give them high marks. The church’s

programs are exemplary in many respects.

The Daily Pilot editorial on Thursday, “Local church’s parking lot

plan has advantages,” is gifted in its quips and insight. The Pilot

is correct in saying that the devil is in the details, but the Pilot

has a little trouble with some of the facts.

With the proper facts in front of the readers, the joint

neighborhoods of Cliffhaven and Newport Heights, which you accuse of

“St. Andrew’s bashing,” might seem quite a bit more justified. The

Pilot is gifted in thinking of the history of St. Andrew’s when the

Pilot says, “let’s back up.”

Backing up, St. Andrew’s was a small community facility designed

originally on a couple of acres at the doorstep and in the heart of

two beautiful neighborhoods. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, St.

Andrew’s began to buy up residential property to grow to the existing

3.9 acres. From 1982 through 1984, an expansion, fresh in the minds

of many residents, doubled the church size.

Evelyn Hart, the insightful mayor at the time, was sure that the

growth was the last rights of expansion for this small neighborhood

church. The 22-year-old planning action took two years and increased

the church’s size to 104,440 square feet. The city left the

residential zoning, the general plan designation, capping the area of

the church to around 100,000 square feet, the size of the average

Home Depot.

Filling the freshly constructed 1980s floor area to the brim has

been a St. Andrew’s’ strong suit. Parking in driveways and on lawns

in the neighborhoods and causing traffic is the product of growth for

which the generators of the traffic and required parking are

responsible. The real present question is, when is enough growth too

much?

A misconception harbored in the editorial is that the neighbors

have engaged in anti-St. Andrew’s rhetoric for no good reason. The

Pilot correctly identifies that St. Andrew’s will turn 250 parking

spaces into 330 parking spaces for $3.5 million.

Anyone doing the math knows this gift of 80 spaces is not St.

Andrew’s whispering through the confessional window that they are

sorry for mucking up the neighborhoods for 22 years. St. Andrew’s is

going before Newport-Mesa Unified School District for a long-term

parking lease for one reason and one reason only. What the Pilot

refers to as “talks” is actually a city Planning Commission

requirement for St. Andrew’s to get more parking from the district.

Don’t blame the city too much.

The first sign of St. Andrew’s at the financially troubled

district’s door prompted the district to say, “It’s going to cost

you.”

St. Andrew’s, finally had a partner who recognized the real trump

of the 21st Century: money. The St Andrew’s $3.5-million lease

payable to the school district is subject to St. Andrew’s spin.

The spin that the Pilot parrots is that the community and the

district get 80 spaces so kids don’t have to park on the street.

However, what the Pilot does not demonstrate is that that more than

200 school-district spaces are pledged to the city Planning

Commission for parking for the new mega-church. These 80 spaces will

be gone in a flash when St. Andrew’s builds its proposed

100,000-square-foot, concrete, underground parking garage (that

worked at Triangle Square) and an additional 20,000 square feet of

gymnasium and large multipurpose spaces. That is correct.

The city will not, by the city’s own standards, approve the

“oversized expansion” without this added district parking and a

long-term lease to guarantee the parking spaces.

So the real question as to why St. Andrew’s deserves the scrutiny

it now receives is couched in this city’s urban planning riddle: When

is enough growth, too much?

The neighbors will submit that when a developer, a church, or even

Dr. Seuss needs school district property on which to park its cars,

it’s time for people of the city to recognize this is too much.

DON KROTEE

Newport Beach

The Daily Pilot, in its editorial regarding the St. Andrew’s

expansion plans, displayed its massive ignorance of fact, process and

history. The expansion cannot, I repeat cannot, be separated from the

parking plan.

The Planning Commission made any approval of the expansion plans

contingent, I repeat contingent, on St. Andrew’s getting the parking

at Newport Harbor High School. If the paper had checked its facts and

possessed a scintilla of familiarity with the governmental processes

involved in this project, it would never have exposed itself to the

ridicule it now so richly deserve.

LYNDA ADAMS

Newport Beach

It is with some amusement that I read the Pilot’s editorial

accusing Cliff Haven and Newport Heights residents of automatically

reacting negatively to the St. Andrew’s Church proposal to add

parking spaces at Newport Harbor High School.

Clearly though, that proposal is only driven by the fact that the

Planning Commission made such an agreement with the school district a

condition of approving the church’s expansion. The church “spinning”

it otherwise does not change that fact. For 20 years, the church has

not cared to do anything to solve the parking problem, so why now?

It seems that in your editorial that instead of thoughtfully

analyzing the specifics of the proposal, you had the visceral

reaction you accuse St. Andrew’s neighbors of having. So putting

aside the expansion, let’s simply look at the facts of the St.

Andrew’s proposal.

In their presentations, church officials constantly characterized

this as a $3.5- million donation to the school. The church is

proposing to give the school district $3.5 million, of which roughly

$2.5 million, but as much as $2.9 million (and maybe more), is going

to fund the improvements the church needs.

This is construction the school board has never deemed as

necessary and is not included in the Measure A overall plan for

Newport Harbor High School. So, out of the original $3.5-million

“donation,” only between $600,000 and $1 million remains after

construction costs. For that $600,000 to $1 million, the church

receives a 30-year lease on the property, with options for 20 more

years of extensions. That equates to a lease payment of $20,000 to

$33,000 a year over 30 years. That is one sweetheart of a deal. I

wouldn’t mind having control of several acres of district property

for $20,000 a year. How about you?

St. Andrew’s is sure receiving a ton of value for that “donation.”

By the way, many St. Andrew’s members I know are livid that the

church is spending $3.5 million simply to gain 80 parking spaces and

keep driving a failed expansion plan through the city. That’s almost

$44,000 a parking space -- clearly ego gone wild on the part of the

church administration.

Our excellent school board members of the past decade have put the

financial scandals of the 1990s behind us all and given us enough

confidence in their leadership to pass Measure A. Entering into a

sweetheart deal with St. Andrew’s that locks up Newport Harbor High

School property as a parking lot for at least 30 years, tying the

hands of future school boards, is a huge disservice to the community.

I’m very disappointed that your usually thoughtful editorial staff

fell so far off the mark in this case and failed to examine the real

issue.

TERRY BOTROS

Newport Beach