Walkways could amount to a harbor-side stroll

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- The City Council this week took a 5-foot step toward

creating a tourist walkway that would run from Lido Village to the Balboa

Bay Club, accepting for public use a piece of property running along the

harbor.

The council accepted the 5-foot walkway lining Newport Harbor in front

of the Cannery restaurant, paving the way for 19 others to be locked in

as public access ways.

The council unanimously approved taking control of the walkway,

located at 2800 Lafayette St.

The final acceptance by the city of the other strips of land,

preserving them for the public, could help the city create the

harbor-side tourist walkway some time in the future, Mayor Tod Ridgeway

said.

The walkways have all been offered by developers of private property

but must be formally accepted by the city or some other public agency.

“It will create the ability for people to walk across the property,”

Ridgeway said. “At least they have access to the bay, to the waterfront.”

The California Coastal Conservancy has been pressuring local agencies

to accept more than 1,200 walkways, sidewalks and other paths that run

alongside private property.

Each of the walkways were promised for public use by the original

developers who built houses and businesses on the coastline. They were

asked to set the areas aside by the California Coastal Commission as

conditions of their developments’ approval.

But each of them, handed over as an “offer to dedicate,” will expire

if a local agency doesn’t claim them. Then, they would revert back to the

property owners.

Ridgeway said he’d like to see a walkway heading from Lido along the

bayfront to the bay club. However, Ridgeway said a boardwalk is fraught

with regulatory hurdles.

The city would need to secure an approval from the California Coastal

Commission and potentially other agencies.

A city committee formulating rules for coastal development will handle

the 19 other walkways, which are likely to be included in a future

ordinance that should preserve them, Ridgeway said.

It is still uncertain when that would happen, Ridgeway said.