No single direction from community

June Casagrande

A town hall meeting on plans to build a community center drew a good

size crowd on Monday night, but it’s not yet clear what direction

city leaders will take from the meeting.

“We will begin to look at what it all means and what direction

that takes us beginning with our next [Newport Coast Advisory

Committee] meeting on Monday,” committee chairman Jim McGee said.

The committee is charged with bringing a recommendation to the

City Council on how to spend about $7 million set aside to build a

community center that some residents hope will serve as a town square

uniting residents of the various Newport Coast subdivisions.

The roughly 120 residents who attended the town hall meeting on

Monday offered a mixed bag of responses to the idea. Some supported

the plan, others opposed it, and many supported the plan with some

tweaks.

“One concern out there is about trying to maintain as much of the

greenbelt as possible along with other aesthetics of the project,”

McGee said. Other concerns that the committee will consider include

safety and traffic.

The committee’s plan calls for a community center with a full-size

gymnasium, a stage for student performances, a branch library and

facilities to support a wide array of activities for children and

adults.

The complex of three Mediterranean-style buildings are tentatively

planned to be built at the northeast corner of the Newport Ridge

Park, adjacent to Newport Coast Drive.

“It was nice to have how much interaction from people,” Assistant

City Manager Dave Kiff said. “The crowd had a lot of different

opinions, and the goal of the meeting was to get that input from

them.”