Mailbag: Preserve Fairview Park for future generations

Wednesday could very well be the day that determines whether the last of Costa Mesa’s undeveloped space will be developed into an urban city park with sports complexes, parking lots, municipal lighting and concrete sidewalks.

That is the day the Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee will meet to vote on just that.

If this were 100 years ago, when Costa Mesa was mostly open space without a single urban park, that might not have been a bad thing. However, Fairview Park land has become increasingly valuable since our city was built out and became crowded, urban and dense.

We need the benefits of getting in touch with nature now more than ever. Fairview is as priceless as the escape it offers. However, it’s value is only in the land not being developed.

The one section being targeted for development has remnants of a large Native American village dating to 9,000 years ago. This area also has a burrowing-owl habitat, as recorded by professional biologists. It’s also an important predatory-bird habitat, with three vernal pool areas identified as the home to animals such as the western toad, Pacific chorus frog and fairy shrimp.

Vernal wetlands exist nowhere else in Costa Mesa, though at one time they were abundant in our area because of the flat terrain.

If you want to save Fairview from eminent destruction, attend the advisory committee meeting at 6 p.m. in the Neighborhood Community Center, 1845 Park Ave.

We must keep the park a nature park and make it better by restoring more habitat and planting more native plants.

Brian Burnett

Friends of Fairview Nature Park

Costa Mesa

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Uses are incompatible at Fairview

Re: “Can trains, baseballs and slides coexist? Fairview Park panel chugs inland to see” (Oct. 13, 2014):

On Oct. 16, I took the time to drive to Hunter Hobby Park in Riverside. I walked the entire park, took 119 pictures and also spent about 20 minutes talking with Randy McDaniel, a park planner with the Riverside Parks and Recreation Department.

Fairview Park and Hunter Hobby Park have only a couple of things in common:

• They both have model railroad facilities. Hunter Hobby was funded by a city bond measure.

• They both are city parks.

Fairview Park and Hunter Hobby Park have many differences:

• Hunter is flat; Fairview is not.

• Hunter is surrounded by industrial buildings; Fairview is surrounded by residential areas, a golf course and public schools.

• Fairview is basically a passive, nature preserve. Hunter is grass, cement and asphalt.

• Fairview has flowing water, ponds, protected Native American features, native grasslands and sections of protected flora and fauna. Hunter is grass, cement and asphalt.

• Hunter is an active sports facility; Fairview is passive-use open space.

If playing fields and the required parking spaces required were installed in Fairview Park, we would lose most of the two flat areas: the model train facility or the mesa next to Estancia High School.

If we need a Hunter Hobby-type park, then find a similar industrial location and build it there.

On Wednesday, the Fairview Park Citizens Advisory Committee will discuss whether trains, baseballs, slides, asphalt, lighting and more parking lots can coexist with nature.

Help keep our beautiful Fairview Park for recreation and open-space purposes as stated in the purchase agreement dated Jan. 16, 1986.

Larry Courter

Fairview Park Advocates

Costa Mesa