Council cautious on city hall plans

Some members want to explore alternate sites for civic center; others think it’s time to start building.The Newport Beach City Council is scheduled to vote tonight on whether to go ahead with plans for a $48-million civic center or to reevaluate whether the current Balboa Peninsula site is the best location for the city hall.

With four of seven council members leaning toward doing a new site study, the project could be delayed six months or more. Councilmen Ed Selich and Don Webb, members of the building committee that is recommending further study of sites and financing, are joined by Councilman Dick Nichols and Mayor John Heffernan.

Heffernan, though, offers his own slant on the evaluation and would allow three months to look at the issue instead of the six months suggested by the building committee.

Supporters of the project that’s been presented for the current site contend other sites already have been explored and found not to be viable.

Newport Center is one logical choice, since it’s more central to the city. City Manager Homer Bludau said getting enough space there for a 72,000-square-foot building and parking would be difficult. Earlier this year, the Irvine Co. told the city a site meeting its needs might be available in about two years.

A 12-acre site next to the city’s central library on Avocado Avenue has also been mentioned. It’s already designated as a park, however, and the Irvine Co. would have to approve any other use. And the Newport Technology Center could accommodate city offices, but some complain it’s even less central to Newport, since it’s on the Costa Mesa border, and the building would require extensive revamping.

Even if some other site becomes available, the biggest obstacle will be rezoning the property. Because of the city’s Greenlight law, such a significant general plan change would require a public vote.

That highlights a possibly deal-breaking problem: how the city would unload the land where City Hall now sits.

“An alternate site, wherever it is, would be subject to Greenlight,” Councilman Tod Ridgeway said. “The City Hall site has no value if it can’t be zoned for a higher and better use.”

The building committee proposed appointing public members to site evaluation and financing committees in January and giving them until mid June to make recommendations.

Heffernan said he thinks that approach is too open-ended and wants to get a quicker answer. He plans to propose the committees be finished with their work in three months, and instead of starting over they’d look at why they shouldn’t proceed with the civic center that’s already been presented.

“I would go about it saying ‘why shouldn’t we do this’ rather than saying this is a clean sheet of paper and we’re here to go back to square one,” Heffernan said.

Although Webb advocates a new site study, he also said he’s still leaning toward the current location, and Selich said he realizes that “intuitively, we might just end up right back where we are.”

So why even study the issue?

Ridgeway and Heffernan both pointed out there’s a council election coming up in 2006. But where Ridgeway sees politically correct pragmatism, Heffernan sees an attempt at accountability.

“I don’t think anybody wants to be running for council with these open questions that haven’t been answered,” said Heffernan, who is serving his second and final term on the council.

Councilwoman Leslie Daigle, an appointee who will face her first election next year, said she wants to hear what the building committee and the public have to say before making a decision.

“I think what’s important is that the community feels that no stone has been left unturned,” she said. “It’s a generational decision that’s going to affect our community for the next 50 years.”