Residents sue Newport Beach over surf park that would cut golf course to 15 holes

Newport Beach residents have filed a lawsuit against the city seeking to block a proposed surf park development that would reduce a public golf course from 18 holes to 15 — even after a successful referendum last year led the city council to rescind a key permit for the project.

The suit, brought by the group Save Newport Beach Golf Course, exposes a legal gap at the center of the dispute: while the city council rescinded a General Plan Amendment after voters effectively overturned it, a separate Conditional Use Permit for the project remains active until October 2027 — leaving the door open, residents argue, for a developer to begin demolishing golf course facilities with or without the amended land-use designation.

The Save Newport Beach Golf Course advocacy group gathered nearly 10,000 signatures in under one month last November to force a referendum on the General Plan Amendment that had authorized placing the surf park in the middle of the golf course. The city council voted to rescind that amendment following the referendum, Voice of OC reported.

But the group's lawyers contend that the rescission leaves other project approvals intact. "Under the City's reading, despite the Council's rescission and the public campaign, a developer could still demolish the driving range, the restaurant, and three holes of the Golf Course for a surf park project before the Conditional Use Permit expires in October 2027," the attorneys wrote in their complaint, according to Voice of OC. "The Golf Course the community fought to save would still be gone."

The proposed project would have stripped the 18-hole Newport Beach Golf Course of three holes as well as the putting green, pro shop, restaurant and driving range to make room for the surf facility.

Benny Hallock, chairman of Save Newport Beach Golf Course's Political Action Committee, was unsparing in his assessment. "When given the chance to listen to the community this city council has a history of fumbling the ball," Hallock wrote in a statement.

City spokeswoman Georgia Rios defended the city's interpretation, saying the referendum's reach was narrow by design. "The City of Newport Beach's position is that both the referendum and the City Council's response were narrowly focused. The referendum only contested the General Plan Amendment, and the City Council only rescinded that specific amendment," Rios said in a statement. She added that other permits "were outside the scope of the referendum and were not revoked." Rios also argued that scaling back the project's square footage "simply adjusts the project's overall scale and does not alter the approved use's fundamental nature," and that a smaller footprint "might even lessen some impacts," according to Voice of OC.

The lawsuit asks a judge to block any demolition or construction on the golf course while the legal dispute is resolved. With the Conditional Use Permit set to expire in October 2027, both sides face a tightening window to settle the question of whether the community's referendum vote was enough to stop the project for good.