A project to refresh the Newport Beach Tennis and Pickleball Club with 14 “official” pickleball courts was given the green light after a City Council majority held club owners to a two-year development agreement.
The renovation plan – in the works for 11 years in various configurations – looked like it could take another 15 years to build until council members voiced concerns about seeing the project ever move forward.
“I’m not sure why we’re extending a development agreement 15 years, and it’s already had 12, so we’re at 27 years of a development agreement in a city that’s tied up resources in which other things could have been built or developed in that area,” Mayor Noah Blom said during a recent council meeting. “I’m concerned about this project.”
Others on the dais agreed, including Councilmember Will O’Neill, who echoed Blom’s sentiments.
“I struggle mightily with whether we should tie this up on a property that hasn’t put shovels into the ground,” he said. “I struggle a lot on any development agreement without showing proof this will absolutely happen soon.”
The renovation project was first approved in 2012. Then last year, when one of the owners Robert O Hill came back again to have a revised version of the refresh approved by the city leaders, the council kicked it back to the Planning Commission to have plans for new pickleball courts made official after players brought their worries to City Hall that they would be left out in the renovations. The Planning Commission approved the revised plan in March with the courts detailed out.
That plan calls for four tennis courts, 14 pickleball courts, a 41-room hotel, a clubhouse with various amenities, two single-family homes and three attached condominiums. O Hill, who represented the project application and who is a 51% owner of the property, explained to the council that much of the holdup has been because of the inability of the club’s multiple owners to…
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