Road closure may be extended

Newport Beach City Council members might find themselves playing Solomon on Tuesday for a group of angry residents and the Irvine Co., who are at odds over the proposed extension of a road closure.

Pelican Hill Road South has been closed since late January for redesign of the Irvine Co.’s Pelican Hill golf course and construction of a new resort there.

Residents balked in September when the Irvine Co. asked to keep the road out of commission until September 2008.

Now the council will have to choose: The Irvine Co. still wants two years; a staff recommendation suggests a one-year closure; and residents think the road should be opened as soon as it’s safely possible.

The Irvine Co. says the full two years is needed because major construction traffic will be going on much of that time.

“Our first priority is safety, and the safest, most responsible course is to keep the road closed while all that is going on,” Irvine Co. spokeswoman Jennifer Hieger said.

The company has addressed residents’ concerns about emergency vehicle access by following all the city’s safety recommendations, such as placing 24-hour guards at each end of the closure to open the gates if necessary, Hieger said.

Pelican Hill Road is a loop road that connects to Newport Coast Drive in two places that are 1.28 miles apart. A city staff report said if Pelican Hill Road South is reopened, speed restrictions in the construction zone would make travel time to Newport Coast Drive just as long as going around Pelican Hill Road North at regular speed.

But some residents just don’t think a closure of two more years, or even one year, is acceptable. Mike Delaney, who lives in the Pelican Hill subdivision, said he and other residents have gathered nearly 500 signatures from Newport Coast homeowners who support reopening the road.

“It doesn’t take that much to fix up the road to make it passable,” he said. “They’ve got all that property. Most of the equipment can be off the road…. This is not the big deal that they’re making it out to be.”

Councilman Keith Curry said he’s backing the residents in opposing the two-year closure, and he wants the road open as soon as it can be safely done. He’s not sure how long that is, he said, but “it may be measured in weeks or months — it’s certainly not measured in years.”

Whatever solution the council seeks, it may be complicated by the fact that the debate has gone into the emotional realm for some. Delaney said residents are wary of extending the closure because they’re afraid “somewhere in the depth of these discussions there’s a move afoot to privatize the road and use it for the resort.”

Hieger said that’s not the case.

“There are no plans to do that,” she said. “We would expect that would be the road people would use to come to the hotel.”

Pelican Hill resident Richard Demirjian said he doesn’t think the city is giving enough consideration to residents’ concerns.

City officials have said they notified residents when the council was voting on the road closure nearly a year ago, but Demirjian said he never heard anything until after the decision was made.

“That’s created a lot of ill will, a lot of distrust,” he said.

The council will discuss the request to extend the road closure at its meeting Tuesday.