Cities propose sports fields

Everyone involved in a proposal to create a 10-acre sports complex for youth sports teams from Newport Beach and Costa Mesa may be closer to an agreement after a recent meeting.

The cities have consistently called for the construction of more sports fields locally to accommodate young athletes. The mayors of both cities met with school district officials and representatives of the companies that own Banning Ranch recently to discuss putting a 10-acre sports field complex on the site.

All involved say the proposal is only in its infancy and that much must be done before a formal agreement is reached and action is taken. Costa Mesa Mayor Eric Bever said the parties are now basically on the same page.

Banning Ranch, which encompasses 400 acres of undeveloped county land in the Newport-Mesa area, has been used to drill oil for years.

A 10-acre segment of the land owned by the Newport-Mesa School District has been tapped by both cities for possible sports fields, but Newport Beach Mayor Ed Selich said the cities have to come up with a more desirable proposal to coax the district to sign off.

“I think we need to reach some meeting of the minds with the school district as to what type of mechanism we could use to make an arrangement to use those fields on an interim basis for a sports park,” Selich said.

District officials have said they might need to use the land for a future school, so they’re reticent to give it up.

“It’s a definite asset, and our biggest concern is housing students,” school board Vice President Dana Black said.

One idea that has been proposed to satisfy the district’s desire for a site is a land swap, in which the district would take 10 acres elsewhere in the ranch in exchange for its present holding. The district might “entertain this option in the future,” said district spokeswoman Laura Boss.

The two cities, the district and the landowners have agreed on a few basic tenets, though, Bever said. They have all agreed a 10-acre sports complex is a desirable goal and the school district shouldn’t have to sacrifice its lands without compensation to achieve it.

A formal proposal seems a long way off, though. Since the land in question is owned by the school district, there are stringent requirements governing its use, including holding public meetings.

“These issues are just at the discussion level, so there’s nothing crystal clear yet,” Newport Beach City Manager Homer Bludau said.

Chris Bunyan, Costa Mesa City Council challenger and leader of the Save the Banning Ranch Task Force, thinks sports fields should be a priority for the city, but said Banning Ranch should be used for hiking trails instead, because it’s one of the area’s last undeveloped spaces.

“I always thought the Orange County Fairgrounds could be an expanse of sports fields when it’s not being used for other things,” Bunyan said.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].