EDITORIALS:Has Greenlight run into a red-flag issue?

It’s too early to say for certain, but voters may have seen a chink in the Greenlight armor in the past week. If nothing else, they certainly have seen the problem with ballot-box planning.

Earlier this month, it became clear that because of an “oversight” ? as the slow-growth movement’s spokesman described it ? the proposed new law, which will be on the November ballot in Newport Beach, would affect single- and two-family homes. About 65% of such homes in the city could end up needing to go to the ballot for a simple expansion because Greenlight II would require a vote for any development that adds 100 homes, 100 peak-hour car trips or 40,000 square feet of building space to what is allowed in the general plan.

The trouble is that those thresholds for a vote would be in effect for 500-foot sections of the city. Imagine, if Greenlight II is approved, a scenario in which every other home on a block already had built additions and a final homeowner comes to the city with plans for expansion. With a few thousand square feet added here, a few thousand added there, this homeowner might be the unlucky one to send the area over the 40,000-square-foot limit.

Talk about an unfair law.

Both city officials and Greenlight leaders have agreed that the chances of a homeowner facing a Greenlight II vote are slim, but nevertheless that such an oversight made it into the initiative should be a wake-up call to voters. What other “oversights” might lurk in the proposed Greenlight II law? As before, we caution voters against these initiatives.

The oversight does point to the problem that has been inherent in the Greenlight ballot measures since the beginning: By taking planning decisions away from the people we elect to make those decisions, voters hamstring development with unbending rules. In this case, it appears the rules will not directly hurt homeowners. But what might rise next?