City to search for Ranch funds

Newport Beach residents urged the City Council Tuesday night to find a way to protect Banning Ranch from development.

The area, which includes coastal bluffs and wetlands, is the last large piece of undeveloped privately held coastal land in Orange County, environmentalists claim.

“Newport Beach is the perfect vehicle to organize the many parties that will have to come together to buy the land,” said Terry Welsh, chairman of the Sierra Club-sponsored Banning Ranch Park and Preserve Task Force. “It’s going to cost a lot of work and take a ton of money.”

Newport Beach City Council voted Tuesday to form a committee to oversee the appraisal process for Banning Ranch.

Mayor Ed Selich, Councilman Steve Rosansky and Councilwoman Nancy Gardner will make up the three-member committee, which will search for funding to buy the land.

Appraising the more than 400-acre piece of land would be a step toward buying it from the gas and oil company Aera Energy.

The city hopes to secure funding from sources including private donations and bonds to buy the land.

Residents at the council meeting Tuesday said they hoped Newport Beach would exhaust its options to purchase the land before allowing it to be developed for housing, shopping and hotels.

The city must eventually determine whether to buy the land and preserve it, or allow parts of it to be developed.

“(If the area were preserved) within any urban area in the state, we would have something that would be so unique 20 years hence — a stretch of land for people to just be,” said resident Kevin Nelson. “That land will be very valuable just as a recreational resource.”

About 53 acres of Banning Ranch lies within the city limits. Although the rest of the land is in the county’s jurisdiction, Newport Beach maintains a sphere of influence over the area, which stretches along the Santa Ana River and West Coast Highway.

Newport Banning Ranch LLC, the private management team that oversees the land, hopes to unveil plans for more than 1,300 housing units, an upscale 75-room hotel and 75,000 square feet of retail space as early as late spring. Tentative plans would still preserve about 50% of the area’s open space, Newport Banning Ranch representatives said.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.