Businesses won’t traffic in initiative

Stacy Brown

NEWPORT BEACH--The Chamber of Commerce is seeing red over an initiative

drive to overturn the city’s new traffic phasing ordinance.

The Green Light group, a local band of environmentalists, unveiled the

initiative last week with plans to gather enough signatures to qualify

for an election next spring.

The group, led by locals Alan Beek, Philip Arst and Bob Caustin, needs

7,600 signatures by Nov. 1 to qualify for the ballot.

They probably shouldn’t expect to get any of those names from local

businesses.

Richard Luehrs, the president of the Newport Harbor Area Chamber of

Commerce, said that while the traffic phasing ordinance has flaws, the

business district fully supports it.

“We think the Planning Commission and City Council took the appropriate

action in passing the ordinance,” Luehrs said. “We don’t totally agree,

but we can live with it, and any initiative that takes the policy

decisions away from the council and gives it to the people is not good

planning. It’s not in the best interest of the community.”

The Green Light group has been working on creating the initiative since

last August. Group members say it is important that the Newport Beach

City Charter be amended to require voter approval of any major amendment

to the city’s General Plan.

“There are 10 major projects currently lined up in the city attorney’s

office, and the relaxation of the ordinance will permit them to be

built,” Arst said. “The list of construction projects is growing in

anticipation of the permanent relaxation of the ordinance.”

The chamber is testing the group’s assumption by sending out a short,

two-question survey via e-mail.

The survey asked residents whether traffic conditions in Newport Beach

were better or worse than in other Orange County cities. It also asked if

residents felt Newport Beach had done a better or worse job than other

cities in managing traffic problems.

“If this initiative went through, it would be a great concern to our

business community,” said chamber spokesman Doug Stuckey, who sent out

the e-mail.

The survey is getting quick feedback, Luehrs added.

“I know, as of now, 700 people responded and the majority believed

traffic is better in Newport Beach,” he said.

The controversial ordinance was passed in June after extensive changes

and public hearings.

The ordinance supplants the one the city had used for 20 years. That

ordinance forced developers to pay for street improvements before they

were built. Under the new ordinance, the city first would build the

improvements and then bill developers for their proportional cost of the

work.