COSTA MESA : Panel Scraps Bike Path Near Golf Course

The Planning Commission, after listening to disgruntled homeowners along Tanager Drive, has voted to scrap plans for a bike path that was to be built behind houses on the north side of the city golf course.

About a dozen homeowners turned out at the meeting last week to tell commissioners that the bike path, which would include a 2,400-foot tunnel at $336,000, would ruin their view, drive property values down and clutter up their back yards.

“It doesn’t make sense financially or aesthetically,” said Lori Hoskins, a homeowner who organized the protest and presented a “before and after” picture presentation of how the bike path would adversely affect about 25 homes.

Though the bike path is a part of the 1974 Master Plan of Bikeways, residents pointed out that times have changed and that bike paths often bring more misery than good. They said the present bike path on the south side of the golf course has not only led to gang graffiti but an increase in crime and pollution.

However, Robert Graham, a resident of Mesa Verde, said he thought something should be built along the street--at the very least a bike lane. Times might be changing, but the city must change with them, he said.

“My concern isn’t to force a bike path that these people don’t want down their throats,” he said. “I just want to look at the options. All the developments in South County offer bike paths and greenbelts. Why can’t we? If we don’t, people are going to leave the city and move south.”

Other changes made in the Master Plan of Bikeways included adding a Santa Ana River Trail on the newly constructed service road on the east side of the Greenville Banning Channel, from Fairview Regional Park to Pacific Coast Highway.

There will also be a new connection to the Santa Ana River Trail over the channel at the end of Gisler Avenue. A bike lane on Hyland Avenue, between South Coast Drive and Sunflower Avenue, and one on Broadway, between Newport Boulevard and Irvine Avenue, will also be added.