Keeping the sun shining on a park

June Casagrande

It’s been almost 2 1/2 years since former Gov. Gray Davis signed a

bill to allow the city of Newport Beach to acquire the 15-acre parcel

known as Sunset Ridge Park for $1.3 million instead of its 1999

appraised price of $4.1 million.

Residents cheered, leaders declared the passage of Senate Bill 124

a triumph and then nothing happened. With Sacramento’s assurance of

the reduced purchase price, the city has been waiting for the right

time to take over the land near West Coast Highway and Superior

Avenue. The right time, of course, is determined by the bottom line.

City officials had set aside $600,000 in this year’s budget to

acquire the property, but that left a big chunk still to be set

aside. No hurry, some thought. The city would continue accumulating

the cash then make the purchase as soon as possible.

What a difference a state budget crisis makes.

Now that city leaders have witnessed things such as disappearing

car taxes and other state budget shell games, they are no longer

comfortable trusting in the state’s assurance that the sweet-deal

offer on Sunset Ridge will be extended indefinitely. City leaders,

and especially West Newport Beach Councilman Steve Rosansky, want to

close the deal now.

“Getting that land is a No. 1 priority,” said Rosansky, who made

the park acquisition a central theme of his bid to serve on the

council.

NO REASON TO WAIT

Adding to this urgency is the undeniable reality that Banning

Ranch isn’t going to be developed soon, if ever. City officials

hoped to piggy back development of Sunset Ridge Park on the housing

development, saving money by using the same access road from Coast

Highway, perhaps even using developer in-lieu fees to pay for

developing the park. But the Banning Ranch development is stalled at

the gate, and there’s no longer any reason to wait.

“Who knows when [and] if Banning Ranch will ever be developed?”

Rosansky said. “How can we put off Sunset Ridge forever because of

that?”

Now the park has shifted into high gear. And the finish line may

be in sight.

All but about $150,000 of the $1.3 million needed to acquire the

park has been accumulated, part of it from the $600,000 set aside in

this year’s budget, some of it from the in-lieu fees that developers

pay cities for park development. City Manager Homer Bludau, charged

with the task of finding that $150,000 fast, thinks he has found it.

“Every year in the budget we estimate conservatively the amount of

revenues we expect to receive,” Bludau explained. “We’re probably

more than $1 million to the good as far as unanticipated revenue that

has gone into the reserves because it wasn’t allocated to be spent

anywhere.”

Some of it is from property tax revenues above what the city

expected. Some from sales tax revenues. And because the city hadn’t

budgeted to receive any car taxes, no doubt car taxes contributed a

portion of that overage.

Bludau believes and council members are likely to agree that about

$150,000 of it should be set aside to acquire Sunset Ridge.

NEXT: BUILDING A PARK

Now the beginning of the end is in sight. Bludau said that the

matter could come before the City Council as soon as April and the

city could take possession of the property the same month.

Under state guidelines, the city can’t buy the property outright.

City staff are still learning the details of how the transaction will

occur, but it’s likely that the city will transfer the $1.3 million

to the state parks department, which will use the money to buy the

land from Caltrans. The parks department will then lease the park

site to the city for a nominal fee -- an arrangement similar to the

way that the city manages state beaches in its borders.

Once the land is in the city’s hands, locals will breathe a sigh

of relief. But the city’s job will be far from over. Officials and

residents will still have to agree on how to transform the rugged

site into a park. Then they will have to draw up the plans and,

finally, do the work.

The first part is expected to be relatively easy: There’s a strong

consensus for building an “active” park at Sunset Ridge -- that is,

one with playing fields and other sports facilities. Chances are, the

access road leading to the park will open onto Coast Highway about

1,000 feet north of Superior Avenue. A representative of the

landowners there has assured the city that the owners want to

cooperate, but nothing is certain until a deal is signed.

The hard part will be finding the money to do it. Depending on the

details, the park could cost anywhere from $3 million to $6 million

to develop. Not a penny of that money is earmarked yet. But city

leaders say they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport. She

may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

june.casagrande@latimes.com.