Back Bay View Park no place for city hall

Newport Beach planning commissioner Barry Eaton has entirely too much free time on his hands to come up with such a cockamamie suggestion to put a new city hall on the newly completed Back Bay View Park at Jamboree and East Coast Highway (“No little plans for new city hall,” Sunday).

It seems like every dolt in the city looks at dedicated open space and parkland as land eligible for a new city hall.

However, the Bayview Landing site just went through a very arduous and complicated approval process at the California Coastal Commission in order to gain approval of the senior housing project and the park at the site. The city is obligated to protect the coastal bluff, scenic hillside, native plant restoration and wetlands, in addition to the site being protected by the dedication requirements of the city’s 1992 Circulation Improvement and Open Space Agreement.

The city will never gain approval to put a city hall on the site. Moreover, the site was designed to protect views of the neighbors and increase motorists’ views of the Back Bay from East Coast Highway.

I defy Eaton to try to take these views away with a city hall rising up on the corner of East Coast Highway and Jamboree.

The restoration of the site in native coastal sage scrub, coastal bluff scrub, native grasslands and wetlands is ongoing. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and though many people in Newport Beach might think beauty lies in manicured green grass, shaved vegetation and intensive flower beds, others appreciate the beauty that nature provides in the coastal bluffs and hillsides surrounding the bay and natural hillsides of Orange County.

Back Bay View Park will eventually look like the bluffs of the Upper Newport Bay. For those who appreciate natural color, the site was ablaze with a carpet of yellow California goldfields a few months ago.

I recommend people take a stroll around Back Bay View Park to appreciate the emerging natural vegetation, taking in the fragrance and spirit of the sage and becoming educated in the different native plants the city has restored there.

I think that the city has been doing a nice job. The wildlife is gradually coming back, and you can see flocks of birds rising from the coastal sage as you walk through the area, all the while enjoying the spectacular views of the bay, the hills, Fashion Island and the mountains in the background.

Parking is available on Back Bay Drive and within the senior housing parking lot.

Back Bay View Park is no place for a city hall. The city should not waste its time even considering it as a site for city hall.

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Jan D. Vandersloot is a Newport Beach resident and environmental activist.