HomeMy WebLinkAboutIV_2_Additional Materials Received_Mosher_Comments on Non-Agenda ItemsFebruary 1, 2023, GPUSC-GPAC Comments
These comments related to the second joint Newport Beach General Plan Update Steering Committee –
General Plan Advisory Committee agenda are submitted by: Jim Mosher ( jimmosher@yahoo.com ),
2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660 (949-548-6229)
Item IV. PUBLIC COMMENTS ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS
In separate comments last week, I expressed concern about what appears to be City staff’s
cancellation, without any public direction to do so from the Council or the GPUSC, of the effort
to engage an outreach and facilitation consultant to assist the GPAC. And I provided a link to an
online repository at which my fellow GPAC members, should they be interested, could review
the surviving records of the 2000-2006 General Plan effort that generated the plan, key portions
of which were approved by voters in 2006, that the present GPAC is being asked to consider
updating.
I forgot to mention the 2013-2014 effort, conducted by a Council/citizens committee called the
Land Use Element Update Advisory Committee, which, after numerous meetings, resulted in
Measure Y, which was soundly rejected by Newport Beach voters.
At this past Saturday’s City Council annual planning session, I commented that I thought we, the
GPAC, lacked clear direction from the Council about what they wanted us to do. But as happens
when many topics have to be commented on in 3 minutes, I did not have time to explain what I
meant.
What I meant was things can and do go awry, as they did in 2014. And that although I believe I
have heard we are embarked on a “comprehensive” general plan update, there is a significant
difference between a comprehensive update (2000-2006) and the 2013-2014 effort, which we
were told was a mere “oil change” (the oil change started with a set of staff-presented planning
goals and, after agreeing to them, basically tasked the committee with developing new policy
statements to justify them).
From what I heard at the initial joint GPUSC-GPAC meeting on January 18, it sounds like GPAC
members will be assigned to existing General Plan elements which they will be asked to revise
without background, public input or context, and in the case of the Land Use Element with a
predetermined result. That makes it sound to me like we are being asked to conduct an oil
change – something I find hard to reconcile with the charge to bring a 20th century document
into the 21st century.
Even a cursory review of the previous GPAC materials reinforces this impression, as
exemplified by the following slide (see next page) presented by the facilitator at the previous
GPAC’s very first meeting on March 11, 2002.
Compared to the 2000-2006 process, we seem to be skipping over Steps 1 and 2 and going
directly to Step 4, with one subcommittee working on Step 3 in parallel.
(While it is true a little of the Step 1 public outreach took place in 2019, all record of it – the
“Newport, Together” website – has disappeared. When and if the current GPAC has access to
it, I think they will find the public input had primarily to do with housing locations, not with
visioning.)
General Plan Update Steering Committee and General Plan Advisory Committee Joint Meeting - February 1, 2023 Item No. IV-2 - Additional Materials Received Public Comments on Non-Agenda Items
February 1, 2023, GPUSC-GPAC comments - Jim Mosher Page 2 of 3
To the extent a general plan is supposed to be a cohesive, interconnected whole, I have trouble
seeing how one can launch into reviewing elements in isolation before deciding what the overall
goal is (if there is indeed any goal other than accommodating the RHNA housing).
Considering a 21st century general plan may not even have the same structure as a 20th century
one, I would think any GPAC effort should begin with a thorough discussion of what is possible
in a general plan, what structures it can have, what our public wants it to achieve, and how best
to achieve it? And that doesn’t seem to be a discussion that immediately segregates itself into
separate elements.
Here are some additional concerns I have:
1. Even if we are only doing an oil change, no one has been asked to look at the current
General Plan Glossary. My recollection from the 2013-2014 oil change is that it defines
words that do not appear in the plan. And for words that are in the plan, there is no way
for readers to tell which are defined words and which are not. Yet, for those that turn out
to be defined in the Glossary, great and unexpected significance can be attached to that
definition, likely adopted with no real review.
2. As part of the preliminary discussion that would seem to need to precede even an oil
change, GPAC members should be aware that California has an Office of Planning and
Research that publishes General Plan Guidelines.
3. Will staff and consultants be supporting GPAC efforts with background and technical
studies such as they did for the 2000-2006 effort? I recall our Central Library once had a
collection of those materials, but “not being a government document repository,” I
believe they may have since discarded them and everything else related to the City’s
General Plan.
4. While I appreciate City staff’s efforts to provide GPAC members with City email
addresses, I noticed the warning that the communications we receive will “expire” after
90 days. That does not seem to me a very good way to document what we have been
told could be a two-year effort.
General Plan Update Steering Committee and General Plan Advisory Committee Joint Meeting - February 1, 2023 Item No. IV-2 - Additional Materials Received Public Comments on Non-Agenda Items
February 1, 2023, GPUSC-GPAC comments - Jim Mosher Page 3 of 3
5. In the existing General Plan, various possibilities for the future of the Banning Ranch
property figure fairly prominently. Now that it has become the Randall Preserve, and
since it is not part of the City, does it still feature in the General Plan? Or has the City
washed its hands of it?
I remain unclear about the relationship between the present GPUSC and GPAC in comparison
to the 2002-2006 GPAC, which, from the surviving records seems to have been a more
autonomous, self-organizing body.
Bu whether the GPAC will be working on a comprehensive update or merely tweaking individual
elements in isolation, these recent suggestions for preliminary discussion from Corona del Mar
architect and 2006 GPAC member Ron Yeo seem wise to me:
What is the future for Newport Beach?
In reviewing the goals and policies of the existing General Plan:
• Which were met?
• Which were ignored?
• What needs to stay?
• What needs to be added or revised?
General Plan Update Steering Committee and General Plan Advisory Committee Joint Meeting - February 1, 2023 Item No. IV-2 - Additional Materials Received Public Comments on Non-Agenda Items