Agency to vote on annexing Santa Ana Heights

The Orange County agency that rules on annexations is poised to vote today on whether to reunite Santa Ana Heights by annexing the western half into Newport Beach.

East Santa Ana Heights was annexed to Newport in 2003, and the western portion has been trying to follow ever since.

But the issue was complicated by three other unincorporated areas — Banning Ranch, the Santa Ana Country Club and an area south of Mesa Drive — that county officials wanted to see annexed either to Newport or Costa Mesa.

Now staff members for the Local Agency Formation Commission, which votes today on West Santa Ana Heights, are recommending that only that area be annexed to Newport — the other three areas would remain in limbo.

Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach, who represents both cities and is on the commission, tried to get all four unincorporated areas divvied up and also tie up some other city-county issues as one package, but that deal fell apart in recent weeks.

“I think it was too aggressive and there was too much involved in the package he was trying to put together,” Costa Mesa Councilwoman Katrina Foley said Tuesday.

One problem was that Costa Mesa wanted a developable piece of Banning Ranch, and Newport leaders refused.

“Really the only thing that wasn’t acceptable was Banning Ranch,” Newport Beach Mayor Steve Rosansky said. “It’s not that the global solution didn’t work. It’s just probably going to need to come in smaller pieces.”

Today the key question will be where the boundary line at the edge of West Santa Ana Heights will be placed.

Foley said Costa Mesa doesn’t like earlier suggestions to place the boundary in the middle of Santa Ana Boulevard — city officials prefer that the boundary be along the east side of the street to maintain a buffer between Newport city limits and the Santa Ana Country Club.

“Without a boundary line … Newport can just keep marching across Costa Mesa,” she said.

Costa Mesa has the first right to try to annex the country club parcel and neighborhood south of Mesa Drive, but representatives of those areas have said repeatedly they would rather annex to Newport and they’ll fight attempts to put them in Costa Mesa.

“We remain steadfast in the struggle by our residents and property owners to one day call Newport Beach our home,” Paul Watkins, an attorney representing the country club and south Mesa Drive residents, said in an e-mail Tuesday.