“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.
