Save Old Newport; Let Builders Have New Part

Re “Office Tower Backers Hope for Green Light,” Nov. 19:

If residents of Newport Beach would be objective enough to take a careful look at their city, they would see that there are actually two Newport Beaches: the older residential city south of the Corona del Mar Freeway, and the newer business area north of it. Nobody lives there; there is no housing, just offices and commercial uses.

The Greenlight Initiative was the result of proposed overwhelming misuses of parcels in the old, crowded part of town: the Dunes convention hotel, the American Legion resort hotel. These projects would have a detrimental effect on their neighbors and all our residents, and Greenlight is correct in opposing them.

However, additional office space north of the freeway should not have a noticeable effect on our lives south of it. There is no appreciable space left for additional housing south of the freeway, therefore most of the additional occupants of those offices will drive to work from beyond it, not through old Newport Beach. Therefore it doesn’t appear to pose a threat to that part of town where we live, shop and play.

If Greenlight is to be accepted as a fair and objective way to preserve our old Newport Beach way of life, then let us look at this project objectively, not emotionally, despite the questionable campaign by the developer.

Gordon Glass

Newport Beach