Corona del Mar's mile of East Coast Highway draws roughly three million visitors a year. About 40% of them live within five miles. Yet only about one in five businesses on the strip serves food or drink, according to a city-commissioned study reported by the Daily Pilot in November 2025.
Newport Beach has spent two years working out why, and its answer has more to do with the pavement than the food. The village has small lots, narrow sidewalks and plenty of parking spaces that the public can't use. The city's fix is aimed at those three things, and the strongest objection so far concerns the same parking.
The study describes a corridor made up mostly of neighborhood goods and services, such as barbershops, nail salons and real estate offices. Food and beverage businesses make up just 20% of what the strip offers.
"That's pretty low," Liz Westmoreland, the city's principal planner, told the City Council at its November 4, 2025 study session, as the Daily Pilot reported. "When we look at other successful main streets, we typically…see the food and beverage [businesses] have closer to a third or even half."
By that measure, the strip's share of places to eat and drink would have to grow by more than half just to reach the low end of that range. The planners' reasoning is simple: restaurants encourage people to visit more often and stay longer, and a salon doesn't do either.
Mayor Pro Tem Lauren Kleiman summed up the challenge at that meeting: "How do you revitalize a main street that doubles as a highway and is nestled between a residential area and a public beach?"
At the Planning Commission's September 17, 2026 study session, city planning staff described a corridor of small lots that are underbuilt, at an average floor area ratio of 0.75. They also said narrow sidewalks leave little room for outdoor dining. That account comes from a Citizen Portal recap of the meeting video.
That explains a lot about why the strip looks the way it does. A barbershop or nail salon fits on a small lot. A dinner restaurant needs a kitchen, seating and somewhere for guests to park. A patio needs sidewalk the village mostly doesn't have.
Parking is the other half of the problem. According to the Daily Pilot's coverage, the study found the corridor has enough parking in total, but too many of those spaces sit in private lots. "That's really the issue that we're seeking to solve here," Westmoreland said. "We don't have one magic solution, but we have a suite of solutions that we really think can help with this issue."
In September, staff brought 14 recommendations to the Planning Commission. They include code amendments, programs and public improvements. Here is what the recap and the earlier council session describe, matched to the constraint each one targets.
| Proposal | What it targets | Status as of the Sept. 17 session |
|---|---|---|
| A Corona del Mar overlay zone | Rules written specifically for this corridor | Proposed |
| Director-level minor use permits for small restaurants | Slow approvals for new places to eat | Proposed |
| Higher floor area ratio, from 0.75 to 1, for consolidated lots | Small, underbuilt parcels | Proposed; commissioners asked about limits |
| Limited mixed use, capped at 30 dwelling units across the whole corridor | Underused upper floors and lots | Proposed |
| Optional monthly in-lieu parking fee to help fund leases of private lots | Parking locked in private lots | Fee design unresolved |
| Dynamic parking signage, a trolley extension, crosswalk bulb-outs | Getting around without circling for a space | Proposed |
| No new car washes, auto repair shops or drive-throughs | Uses that don't fit a walkable main street | Floated at the November 2025 council session |
The restaurant item is the one that would change the most, the soonest. When it first came up in 2025, Westmoreland described it as letting preferred restaurant uses through without public hearings. A small operator weighing a corridor lease would face a shorter, more predictable approval process. The size threshold that would define a "small" restaurant has not been made public.
The parking ideas draw on what other South County towns already do. The Daily Pilot noted that city staff suggested following San Clemente and Dana Point by leasing private spaces so their lots are open to the public.
At the same September 17 meeting, the commission dealt with a short procedural item that speaks to the outdoor dining limits. It adopted a resolution confirming that Five Crowns had voluntarily surrendered its limited-term permit for temporary outdoor patios, file PA2023-0202. The city had accepted the surrender on December 2, 2025. A deputy city attorney told the commission that the surrendered permit rights are void and can't be used in future approvals.
Five Crowns is one of the corridor's best-known dining rooms. With that permit gone, any future patio there would need a new approval, under whatever outdoor dining rules the overlay sets. Staff also discussed compatibility standards for the corridor, including earlier patio closing times and limits on live entertainment. Exact hours have not been published.
So the plan works both ways. It would make small restaurants easier to approve while setting tighter rules for what they can do after dark. That trade matters a great deal on a street that backs onto homes.
Public comment at the study session focused on parking. Several residents told the commission that parking and congestion along Pacific Coast Highway are at capacity, spilling into nearby residential streets and hurting businesses. "Parking and congestion on this stretch are at the limit," one resident said, according to Citizen Portal's recap. She opposed turning the village into a larger tourist strip and asked for a resident advisory committee and more detailed outreach.
The city's own study looks at the same streets and finds enough spaces in total, with too many of them in private lots. The in-lieu fee is meant to close that gap by paying to open private lots to the public. Staff acknowledged that the fee's design and coastal permitting constraints are still unresolved. The commission asked for peak-period traffic and parking data before the proposal comes back.
The September session was a study session, and the commission took no formal action. The city's project page lists the steps so far and the ones still to come:
The project page has a sign-up for the corridor study's interest list, the easiest way to hear when the hearing is scheduled. When it was first presented in 2025, implementation was projected to begin as early as late 2026. That date depended on the hearings that are still ahead.
Until any of this is adopted, a small group of established places and annual events will keep doing the work the study wants more restaurants to do.
The Christmas Walk is the one day a year the corridor already works the way the study describes, with crowds on foot, places to eat, and parking found somewhere other than PCH. It falls before the commission has scheduled its next hearing on the plan.
For more on the village's recent changes, see our summer guide to Corona del Mar Village and the Corona del Mar neighborhood page.
I follow the corridor study because changes on East Coast Highway affect how the blocks around it live day to day. If you'd like to talk through what the proposals could mean for your street, Meghan Vittetoe is glad to share what she's watching ahead of the next hearing. Let's Connect.
Meghan Vittetoe is a seasoned luxury real estate professional with over 14 years of experience representing clients in Orange County and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. A Southern California native, she combines deep market knowledge with an aggressive marketing strategy to consistently exceed expectations and deliver exceptional results. Known for making each transaction seamless and enjoyable, Meghan is a trusted guide for buyers and sellers navigating the region’s most coveted properties. Outside of real estate, she enjoys life as a dedicated wife and mother, and loves traveling, fitness, fine dining, and spending time with her family and beloved pets.
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520 Newport Center Dr. #330
Newport Beach, CA 92660
Meghan Vittetoe | CA DRE# 01832263