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.
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