"Keep Newport Newport" Meets 11 Major Newport Beach Projects and a Rough $1.75 Billion Tab

Published November 5, 2026

Office buildings in Newport Center, Newport Beach. Photo by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 3.0.

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NEWPORT BEACH | CITY HALL WATCH | NOVEMBER 5, 2026

Updated Originally published Nov 5, 2026 · Updated Nov 9, 2026

What changed: On November 7, 2026, Orange County’s updated election results showed Newport Beach voters rejecting Measure H, 67.24% to 32.76%. The measure would have amended the General Plan to allow 2,900 affordable homes, including 870 in Newport Center and 929 in the Airport Area. How we keep stories current →

“Keep Newport Newport” is a great slogan. It gets more interesting next to 11 major development deals and 2,615 homes the City Council approved, entitled or allowed to move forward over the past eight years.

Run those homes through a development-cost model the city itself commissioned, and you get roughly $1.75 billion. That’s a lot of change for a town whose brand is apparently “same Newport, new skyline, very large spreadsheet.”

The fine print on the big number

The city hired Keyser Marston Associates to study development costs. Its model estimated about $668,000 per home for a sample 125-unit apartment project. We multiplied that by the 2,615 homes below. The cost model is the city’s; the math is ours.

The city never published a $1.75 billion total. It’s not developer budgets, sales prices, appraisals or money spent. It’s one prototype applied across very different projects, so real costs could be higher or lower.

The list covers major residential projects with identifiable council actions from Nov. 3, 2018, through Nov. 3, 2026. “Approved” means the council approved development rights or agreements, or upheld an approval on appeal. Permission to move forward, not a promise every unit gets built by Tuesday.

The projects, same rough math

Newport Airport Village: up to 444 homes, about $297 million
4400 Von Karman: 312 homes, about $208 million
MacArthur Court: up to 700 homes, about $468 million
1600 Dove Street: 282 homes, about $188 million
1400 Bristol: 229 homes, about $153 million
300 Newport Center: 150 homes, about $100 million
1300 Bristol: 193 homes, about $129 million
1300 Dove: 132 homes, about $88 million
1401 Quail: 67 homes, about $45 million
Fairway Three: 78 homes, about $52 million
150 Newport Center: 28 homes, about $19 million
Total: 2,615 homes, about $1.75 billion

Unit counts and approvals come from the city’s housing progress reports and project files. The dollar column is our estimate. The city’s development-agreement index is a good place to start, though navigating it is its own minor development project.

Two details matter. Airport Village’s 444 is the maximum allowed under the approved plan, including density-bonus units. And at 300 Newport Center, the council denied appeals and left the Planning Commission’s approval in place; it didn’t originate that approval. Some agreements vest rights, but later design, map or permit steps may still be needed.

What does the city get?

Development cost and fees to the city are two different piles of money. We couldn’t responsibly turn the agreements into one apples-to-apples total of fees owed and collected across all 11.

One concrete example: 1300 Dove’s materials describe a $3 million general public-benefit fee, adjusted yearly for inflation. The same agreement sets a reduced park in-lieu fee of about $7,600 per home, compared with roughly $48,000 at the usual rate. A negotiated benefit and a negotiated discount in one deal. Newport’s version of a two-for-one, except the math needs a staff report. And the $3 million isn’t proof the city has collected it, or the project’s full fee bill.

Bigger number on the horizon: in 2025, the council allocated 1,500 of 2,349 planned future Newport Center homes to the Irvine Company through a development-agreement change. The company agreed to about $17 million in street and landscaping work and is projected to contribute about $53 million to the city for parks, public safety and public works. Future commitments, not $53 million in the bank. Those 1,500 homes aren’t in our 2,615 count.

One money connection, and a very important calendar

The city’s 2020 Airport Village notice names Saunders Property Company, “c/o Starpointe Ventures,” as applicant. Separately, Starpointe gave $48,000 in 2026 to California Leadership Today, a committee that spent money supporting incumbents Lauren Kleiman and Erik Weigand and opposing challengers. We covered that in our campaign-money story.

Now the calendar: the Airport Village council action was 2020. The contribution came six years later. That’s a documented link between an applicant and later political spending. It’s not evidence the money influenced the 2020 approval, bought a vote or went to an official personally. We found no evidence of that. Watchdogging means showing the paper trail without pretending it proves more than it does.

So what does “Keep Newport Newport” mean?

The city doesn’t publish one master total for what it has approved. It publishes project-by-project records, agreements, fee terms and housing reports. We put a selected group in one place, showed the math and kept the caveats attached.

Result: 11 projects, 2,615 homes, roughly $1.75 billion in estimated development cost, plus future Newport Center capacity with a projected $53 million in contributions. Not a final bill and not every project in town. But if “Keep Newport Newport” is the promise, locals deserve to know what’s approved, what public benefits come with it, what gets discounted and what’s still just a projection.

Turns out keeping Newport Newport comes with a lot of paperwork. And a pretty big tab.

Featured photo: Don Ramey Logan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.