Stairway advocates’ long climb at Fairview Park is nearly over
On a sunny afternoon, the wind swayed rows of caution tape in a dusty corner of Costa Mesa, where something as simple and seemingly benign as park access is finally being built after decades of struggling by advocates to win city approval.
Bob Graham on Monday stood just outside the construction site, at the southern terminus of Canary Drive in the tony Upper Birds neighborhood, with a smile on his face. Behind him was the nearly completed product he’s long wanted to see: stairs leading to Fairview Park from the street.
“Here they are, in living concrete,” Graham said.
He’s been stopping by the site from time to time since construction began Oct. 21.
The stairs are scheduled to be completed Nov. 14. The $37,000 project includes work done on the adjacent retaining wall. The stairs will have handrails and a special smooth channel for bicycles.
With a grin, Graham, a parks commissioner, looked at the work done so far and noted that it only took City Hall about 20 years.
“I think about how many city councils this went by,” he said, “and it always got shoved on the shelf.”
Graham lives just north of Fairview Park, though not on Canary or even particularly close to it. Still, the stairs have been his pet project for the last several years. With the goal of fixing the street’s access problem into Fairview Park, he lobbied city decision-makers and even went door to door with a petition to find supporters.
The inconspicuous slope at the end of Canary — probably formed after Upper and Lower Birds housing tracts were built in the 1960s — is a short but steep incline that gets dangerously muddy to climb after it rains. Graham always contended that the incline needs proper access — a staircase, maybe with a handrail or two — for those who can’t make their way through the dirt.
Others balked at the idea. Adding a staircase there, they argued, would only lead to more people, more traffic and less parking on the quiet, residential street.
To dissenters, Graham says adding the staircase is important because Canary is one of only two pedestrian access points into the northern side of Fairview’s 208 acres. The other is Placentia Avenue, a main thoroughfare for the area.
Plus, he says, the top of the tiny peak also happens to yield one of the city’s best vistas: clear views of Fairview’s open expanses, riparian ponds, the Santa Ana River and the city golf course.
The 1990s saw some movement toward the addition of a staircase after city officials funded two studies. Solutions ranged from a $36,100 staircase to $700,000 to buy a nearby home, demolish it and build a “looping ramp system” that would accommodate everybody, including emergency vehicles.
But the studies didn’t convince the powers that be at the time to approve anything. The Canary staircase idea got kicked around by the City Council and Parks and Recreation Commission, and in 2001, the council decided to look again at the proposal when the Canary-adjacent portion of Fairview Park, an area officially known as Area G, was up for discussion.
But then the proposed stairway project went into government limbo for several years.
In early 2013, Graham presented to the council his petition of 186 Upper Birds residents who said they wanted a staircase at Canary. Some were critical of his signature-gathering methods, but the petition worked.
Later that year, $65,000 for a staircase at Canary Drive was on the list of city capital improvement projects suggested by city CEO Tom Hatch. The funding was quietly approved in June as a small portion of the city’s $132-million budget for 2013-14.
Mayor Pro Tem Steve Mensinger said if the Upper Birds tract were built today, the council would require a staircase.
“It took 40 years of discussion, but it took this council to fund an improvement that gives safe access for the neighborhood into Fairview Park,” he said. “Without exception, everybody I’ve talked to about it is thrilled with it.”
Graham said now that his stairs project is basically over, he can “take the file on the stairs and put it in deep storage. All this stuff that I’ve accumulated — it’s done.”
He still has concerns about the steepness of the stairs and bike access. But the retired science teacher — who said he likes “connecting things” — has other projects in mind.
There’s the trail network in Fairview Park, or maybe clearing a path from Harbor Boulevard, along the city golf course and all the way into Fairview.
Graham also wants to improve safe access on a bicycle bridge that goes over the Santa Ana River toward Talbert Regional Park.
The solution may involve a simple addition, like a ramp. Or maybe some stairs.
