HomeMy WebLinkAboutIV(e)_Additional Materials Received_MosherNovember 6, 2024, GPAC Agenda Item IV.e Comments
The following comments on an item on the Newport Beach General Plan Advisory Committee agenda are
submitted by: Jim Mosher (jimmosher@yahoo.com ), 2210 Private Road, Newport Beach 92660
(949-548-6229)
Item IV.e. December Workshops: Arts and Cultural and Historical
Resources, and Land Use and Harbor, Bay, and Beaches
The recommendation for “the Land Use Subcommittee and the Harbor and Bay Subcommittee to
clear the draft content for the workshops without subsequent GPAC review” seems questionable
from a Brown Act perspective. Specifically, pursuant to California Government Code Subsection
54952(b), the subcommittees were created solely to formulate recommendations for
consideration by the full GPAC, which allowed them great flexibility in their meeting formats.
While I appreciate City staff has gone to considerable lengths to ensure the public is aware of and
able to attend the subcommittee meetings, should they be empowered, as recommended, to
substitute their judgment for that of the full GPAC, their meetings would be subject to additional
constraints, including, among others, adherence to a formally posted agenda.
Setting that concern aside, the subcommittee members will evidently be commenting on the
consultant-prepared workshop materials, including possible goals and policies to implement what
the consultant sees as “guiding values” (formerly, and by most other cities, called “guiding
principles”).
In that respect, I think it is useful to remember that the Introduction to the current General Plan
says (near bottom of page I-10) that the goals and policies it contains were also guided by
principles developed through extensive public outreach and GPAC debate:
“In the next step of the process, guiding principles were developed. These principles were
used to guide the General Plan alternatives and policies, and cover the following topics:
Circulation, Economic Development, Community Character, Affordable Housing,
Environmental Conservation, and Environmental Hazards. They were developed with input
from the Visioning Process, GPAC, as well as public comments heard at the GPAC meetings.”
Those principles guiding the development of the 2006 General Plan goals and policies, and an
explanation of how they were arrived at, can be found in a July 28, 2004, memo to that prior
GPAC and in an August 6, 2004, memo prepared after review by the City Council and Planning
Commission.
Since it seems unlikely that the aspirations of our community have changed greatly in the last
twenty years, reviewing those memos seems useful not only to search for principles and values
that may have been overlooked in the present process (and that should be folded back in), but
also to reflect on the level of local control over land use decisions that was assumed in 2004. I
believe the loss of much of our local control, and the constraints that places on the General Plan
Update needs to be conveyed at the workshops.
General Plan Advisory Committee - November 6, 2024 IV.e - Additional Materials Received