Council weighs value of slips vs. fields

Marinapark would end up as either a small marina or a grassy park under two proposals that gained Newport Beach City Council support on Tuesday.

Or the mobile-home park site could turn into a combination of the two. What seems assured is that a full-service marina, where boat slips could be leased long-term, is off the table.

The council’s decision Tuesday followed its vote two weeks ago to close the mobile home park in about 14 months.

The two proposals ? the one for a short-term marina was pitched by the city’s harbor commission, the one for an open park by the resident group Protect our Parks ? came from among eight that the council considered for the 9.8-acre property along the harbor on the Balboa Peninsula.

The two proposals highlight the key issue at the center of the discussion over the property ? whether the city needs more boat slips or more open space.

Tom Billings, founder of Protect Our Parks, stressed that residents want views of the bay and access for smaller, hand-launched boats.

“Parks are for the community, not a privileged few,” he told the council.

The benefit of a small marina would be that including 50 to 60 slips would enable Marinapark to pay for itself, harbor commissioner Tim Collins pointed out.

Development costs for either a park or limited marina have been estimated as high as $14 million. The marina plan could bring in as much as $2.3 million per year, according to city estimates.

Collins and other harbor commissioners also pointed out that the city has a need of more visitor boat slips.

The answer, ultimately, may lie somewhere in between the two plans.

With Mayor Don Webb pointing out how similar the two competing plans looked on paper, council members discussed the possibility of combining various components of the two plans into a compromise.

The council sent the work of determining whether the plans could be joined to the ad hoc committee that has been meeting for months to discuss plans for the mobile-home park.

Still in the air too were calls for the city to get more input from residents about what to do with Marinapark.

Alan Beek, a former council candidate and member of Stop Polluting Our Newport, suggested the council should send out a citywide mailer asking residents what they would use in a park.

“These are the questions that need to be answered,” Beek said.

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