MAILBAG: Lennar project should proceed

I must take sharp exception to Nancy Allari’s letter (“Unscrupulous developer not welcome,” Aug. 30) in which she blasts Lennar Corp. oration for attempting to develop 79 condominiums on land adjacent to the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel.

Marriott International just put $60 million into transforming its hotel into a luxury resort and determined that it has 4.25 acres of former tennis court land no longer required.

Lennar Corp. oration, Orange County’s second-largest real estate developer, would like to use that land for a group of luxury condominiums for which many of my friends in Newport Beach can hardly wait.

The Newport Beach City Council approved of that use. I know that the California Coastal Commission has jurisdiction over the land — which is well inland from the coast — but I really don’t know why. In granting approvals, the City Council and now the Coastal Commission haves extracted from the developer millions of dollars in “mitigation fees,” a real rip-off of the developer.

, — but I well -know that’s how governmental agencies do it.

There is no reason why this project should not proceed. And when it is completed, I hope that Ms. Allari does not try to place her name on the potential-buyers’ interest list.

MARTIN A. BROWER

Corona del Mar

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NHHS bell tower ?ties us together

After witnessing the wrecking ball taking down the bell tower at Newport Harbor High School I came home to the cover of the Los Angeles Times and the return of the copula to the bell tower of the former St Vibiana’s Cathedral.

I hope that the officials in charge of the reconstruction at Newport Harbor High School realize that our bell tower is just as important to us in Newport Beach.

Even though areas of Newport have grown up around it, the tower remained a focal point and a reminder of the old Newport and the harbor it was named after.

We must make sure the new bell tower stands as tall and as proud as the original.

DANA ANDERSON

Newport Beach