Irvine Co. deal approved

The Newport Beach City Council voted unanimously to approve a multimillion-dollar development agreement with the Irvine Co. Tuesday after the company agreed to hand over a 4-acre site on East Coast Highway valued at $6.3 million as part of the deal.

“The city has felt that this was very important and that this would be another benefit to the community and we agreed,” said Irvine Co. official Dan Miller.

The site, known as the Lower Castaways, at East Coast Highway and Dover Drive, has access to the lower Newport Bay and could be used for nature trails and marine recreation activities, Miller said.

“This could provide for the maintenance of harbor facilities and give us an outlet to the bay for a number of uses directly related to the water,” said Councilman Don Webb.

As part of the deal, zoning for the area will create a new planned community that merges two blocks of Newport Center, Fashion Island and San Joaquin Plaza to form North Newport Center Planned Community. The deal includes about $43 million in development fees, road and park improvements, and other benefits from the Irvine Co.

The development agreement also includes an option for Newport Beach to purchase property in the Newport Center block between Santa Rosa and San Nicholas drives for a new city hall at the city’s appraised price of about $7.7 million.

In other council news, the leader of the anti-rehabilitation home group Concerned Citizens of Newport Beach said the group will proceed with plans to slap Newport Beach with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit after the city’s legal counsel advised the group’s demands to tighten rules on rehab homes would not hold up in court.

“We are just residents who are trying to figure out how our neighborhoods became prisons without walls,” said Balboa Peninsula resident Lori Morris.

Morris and other residents said lax city rules have led to an over concentration of rehabilitation homes in costal neighborhoods.

They contend more than 100 rehabilitation centers in Newport Beach have led to problems with traffic, trash and noise.

Details for a proposed ordinance to curb the spread of rehab homes in Newport Beach were outlined in a well-attended council study session Tuesday. Denys Oberman, who heads the group, said residents were not happy with the progress the city has made in cracking down on rehabilitation homes. The group plans to follow through with previous threats to sue the city because the city has failed to meet the demands of residents, Oberman said.

The group asked the city block rehab facilities from operating withing 1,000 feet of schools and bars.

Such a restriction would not hold up in court if rehabilitation home operators challenged it, said attorney Jim Markman, who represents the city on the group home issue.

The city council could vote on new rules to govern the homes as early as January.

The council also voted unanimously to elect Councilman Ed Selich as the new mayor of Newport Beach and Councilwoman Leslie Daigle as the new mayor pro tem.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].