Saddle up!

Mathis Winkler

SANTA ANA HEIGHTS -- As the sergeant in charge of community relations

in Watts -- the Los Angeles neighborhood that suffers from chronic

impoverishment and urban blight -- Jeffrey Hamilton knows what happens

when kids lose places to play.

When recreational outlets for youngsters disappear, “they turn to

crime,” Hamilton said, standing in the backyard of his Bayview Heights

home Tuesday. Here, he keeps dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, turtles,

three horses, African Pygmy goats and Austy, an emu.

Hamilton’s “residential and equestrian neighborhood” appears to face

anything but imminent urban decay. Sure, planes taking off from John

Wayne Airport shoot almost directly over the area, and cars whisk by on

the San Joaquin Toll Road.

But those concerns aside, the unincorporated island between Newport

Beach and Costa Mesa is about the closest Orange County comes to a rural

idyll.

The faint smell of horse manure lingers in the air and roosters can be

heard crowing from time to time. Where other neighborhoods have

sidewalks, Bayview Heights has horse trails leading down to the Back Bay.

People greet each other on the street and hold afternoon chats over their

garden fences.

While horse-owning residents have used the bay bluffs as riding trails

for decades, Hamilton and his neighbors hope they’ll soon have a more

formal setting to take their equine friends, a place they know their

children can ride safely.

The county plans to meet those needs by building an equestrian park

with fenced riding arenas in the neighborhood. Open only during daylight

hours, the park would not include lighting, and county employees would

check on the park from time to time.

Newport Beach’s planning commissioners will discuss the proposal,

which will be built in an area the city may soon annex, at their meeting

tonight.

“It’s about time,” said Jeanne Rodriguez, who has lived in the area

since 1967 and had just finished riding Rory, a 5-year-old Arabian mare,

in a private arena next to Hamilton’s home.

“It doesn’t have to be elaborate,” she said, adding that other

equestrian neighborhoods in Orange and Yorba Linda have had public arenas

for years.

“We need it,” agreed Sheila Ferguson, a stay-at-home mom who lives

across the street from Hamilton. The owner of two horses, she said a

public arena would give neighborhood kids a place to meet.

“We don’t have a safe place for children,” she said, adding that it

was fine for adults to ride on the streets. Kids, on the other hand, need

the extra protection, Ferguson said.

County planners said the new park would allow the county to restore

other riding areas to their original states. The area known as “the mesa”

would be fenced off to plant native vegetation, said Mark Esslinger, the

county’s project planner for the riding arena.

City planners said they would support the plan, since it would move

the riding area closer to the Delhi Channel and reduce dust problems in

the neighborhood.

But the new park’s grand opening won’t happen any time soon. Once the

county has received approval from the city, it will have to take it to

the California Coastal Commission, Esslinger said.

“We have a fair ways to go yet,” he said, adding that he still didn’t

know how much the park would cost to construct.

FYI

The Newport Beach Planning Commission meets at 7 p.m. today at City

Hall, 3300 Newport Blvd.