Trash-free site clears way for community center

June Casagrande

An environmental study shows there is no garbage buried underneath

the site where residents hope to build a community center.

The northwest corner of Newport Ridge Park is near enough to a

former landfill that resident leaders and local officials were

worried that methane gas or other environmental problems could

threaten plans to build a $7-million community center there.

“It’s so close to the landfill, there was great uncertainty as to

how far the refuse footprint went under Newport Ridge Park, and

apparently there’s none at all,” Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff

said.

A second-choice location for the community center in the Newport

Coast Park project was shot down by the Irvine Co. last week. The

community center would take up needed space for playing fields and

would violate terms of a lawsuit settlement that protects migrating

animal species from the effects of night lighting, a company

representative told local leaders. The park will be built near the

top of Ridge Park Road.

Instead, the Irvine Co. suggested a 2.5-acre parcel about a

quarter mile north of the intersection of Newport Coast Drive and San

Joaquin Hills Road.

“It makes good sense,” said Jim McGee, chairman of the Newport

Coast Advisory Committee, which is steering efforts to build the

community center. McGee said that the committee has abandoned the

Newport Coast Park site in favor of this parcel as their

second-choice location.

The next steps are to select an architect to draw up initial site

plans and to revisit whether residents want a community center at

all.

“The preliminary opinions that we received approximately a year

and a half ago were that most people that responded to a survey were

in favor of the concept of a community center,” McGee said. “We’re

going to test public opinion again and, assuming that public opinion

has not significantly changed, we’ll be asking what types of

amenities people want at a community center.”

The favored site in Newport Ridge Park is owned by the Newport

Ridge Community Assn. Residents who support a community center hope

that, by emphasizing the benefits to the association and its

homeowners, they can persuade the association to donate the land.