HomeMy WebLinkAboutIV(c)_Additional Materials Received_After Deadline_MosherAugust 24, 2022, GPUSC Agenda Comments
These comments on an item on the Newport Beach General Plan Update Steering Committee agenda
are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( jimmosher@yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660
(949-548-6229)
Item IV.c. Update on Housing Element and Land Use Element
Approach
All one can glean from the agenda about this item is that:
“Staff will present an updated approach to revising the Land Use Element as part of
implementing the Housing Element consistent with the adopted Section 4 (Housing Plan) and
state law.”
I find it interesting that in the fine print at the beginning of the agenda, staff asks the public to
“submit any written comments no later than 8:00 a.m. on Monday in order to give the Committee
adequate time to review your submission” -- yet sees no problem with withholding any hint of its
own comments on an important topic like this until the live meeting itself, where the committee
and public will be expected to react to them cold.
To the limited extent I understood the previous GPUSC meeting, with the Housing and
Circulation Elements completed before they even start, for the first year or so, staff expects a
single GPAC to advance the Land Use and Safety Elements ahead of the other elements. Given
what we are told are firm state-mandated deadlines, that may be a reasonable approach, but
during that time, it would seem to me some of the GPAC members appointed because of their
interest in those other elements may feel a bit superfluous.
If staff’s updated approach is what I am guessing it might be, at the first meeting of the GPAC,
they may want to be able to tell the GPAC members that the GPUSC has asked them to replace
the objective stated as a banner at the start of the current LUE (“Primarily a Residential
Community That Balances the Needs of Residents, Businesses, and Visitors, with a
Conservative Growth Strategy”), with an entirely new objective, which will become their new
guiding star (“A RHNA-compliant city”). I would be curious if the GPUSC agrees with that.
The aspect of the approach I heard at the last meeting that most bothers is the idea of
presenting a GPUSC/GPAC- and Council-approved Land Use plan to the public for a Greenlight
vote with no clear plan for what happens if the vote fails.
I can easily envision this leading to a lawsuit from the state, with the City likely compelled to
attempt to defend Greenlight. Not only could this be extremely expensive, but if the defense is
unsuccessful, it could potentially lead not only to the vote being deemed irrelevant, but to
Greenlight itself being invalidated. That would seem a very bad outcome.
Does the City have a good estimate of what could happen if voters reject the plan?
At the last GPUSC meeting, I noted the caveat at the end of City Charter Section 423, which
states:
“This section shall not apply if state or federal law precludes a vote of the voters on the
amendment.”
August 24, 2022, GPUSC agenda Item IV.c comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 2
After that meeting, I had a though based on these assumptions:
1. We have been told that every eight years the state requires a certain minimum amount
of housing to be added to the LUE whether local citizens want it or not.
2. The updated LUE requires an EIR evaluating its impacts.
3. The EIR must evaluate alternatives to the proposed plan.
I am not suggesting the following is a good approach, or the right approach, but it seems to me
an approach that should be considered and debated by the GPUSC.
My thought is:
1. Direct staff and GPAC to develop not one, but at least two distinctly different plans that
would add the state-required amount of housing (and, hopefully, no more). This would
not seem to involve a lot of extra work, since these would presumably be among the
alternatives required to be evaluated in the EIR.
2. Put the two (or more) plans on the ballot for separate votes.
3. Explain to voters that the state-law precludes a normal Greenlight vote, but they will be
allowed to indicate the alternative they prefer.
4. Promise Council will adopt the plan that gets the most “yes” votes, even if it is not the
majority that Greenlight normally requires.
This would retain some modicum of voter choice, while retaining Greenlight as a viable
mechanism for controlling amendments to the General Plan beyond the minimum required by
RHNA. In other words, until the next RHNA cycle, any changes to this voter-selected (if not
approved) plan would be subject to the normal Greenlight process, since there would (hopefully)
be no litigation invalidating it.
And if, by some miracle, one of the plans actually got majority approval, Greenlight would have
been followed even in the RHNA process (as staff – I think unrealistically – hopes it will be).