Mailbag: Newport Shores residents deserved more advance notice of housing project

The heading, Newport Shores residents voice opposition to the projects intended to aid lower-income people is hardly accurate (“Some Newport Beach residents angry over 12-unit, affordable-housing project,” Nov. 28).

For clarification, the angst was really about two issues on only one of the projects, the Newport Shores project. Most of the of 24 citizens who had a chance to speak were merely asking for a delay so the project could be studied in greater depth. The second issue questioned the effective use of what will be in the end $2.5 million worth of available dollars. No one was saying we shouldn’t take care of our veterans, or seniors for that matter. Painting this issue any other way is hugely misleading.

No doubt the anxiety level was increased as area homeowners were not notified by the city or developer until two days before the meeting and only via the neighbors’ word of mouth. So what we respectfully asked our City Council for was to delay the vote on this one project so we had time to fully understand the impact over time — and some explanation as to why it is efficient to spend over half of the fund available on a project that will only affect seven of 200,000 veterans in Orange County.

What we got was a rather arrogant lecture by City Councilman Tony Petros on what bad and unpatriotic people we were for even questioning the project, how it was good for Newport Shores to have low-income housing in our neighborhood and how we should be grateful for all the city has done recently for West Newport.

I do not think unreasonable, and believe we have basic rights as citizens, to expect proper notice for a development that affects our neighborhood, to be able to ask questions of our city leaders, and if history has taught us anything, it is that blind faith in any government program is unwise.

Local residents should be, and any reasonable person would be, concerned, as this is a 55-year-commitment with no clear recourse if things change — and they will. Changes in governance, regulations, management, bankruptcy etc., are inevitable over that period of time. Our city government basically is telling us they know best: just shut up, trust them, and everything will be OK.

The project at it’s worst is social engineering on a local scale, where 12 citizens of Newport Beach — yes they are renters, but our friends, neighbors and fellow citizens — are being displaced for 12 strangers. Several have lived there for over 10 years. The project at best it is a poor use of available funds, helping only a lucky seven vets hit the jackpot. For the five seniors it is a terrible location, with no nearby services or markets available, except a liquor store, and there’s no planned elevator.

So many good questions remain, and evidently will go unanswered. Why are we spending around $2.5 million, when all is said and done? Could not the money be better allocated to help more? What was the rush to vote now on this plan now? How can the property be ADA-approved with no elevator access for the disabled? What happens when regulations change for program admission? How can the city exit the program, if problems do occur?

So the mayor has lived here 40 years and has never seen anything like this? Well, I’ve been here 34 years and, unfortunately, I have seen the same lack of transparency on a contentious issue more than once before from our city government.

Gary Reasoner

West Newport Beach

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Developer fees should fund library

The city of Costa Mesa is presently adding new housing that, with the planned density, will obviously add substantially to the population in our town. Services of all kinds will, as a result, be more strained. At present, a new library is planned to replace the small Donald Dungan Library in Lions Park. It is only fair that each new housing unit built by developers be assigned a development fee to help pay the cost of the new library.

Mary Ellen Goddard

Costa Mesa

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