REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK:Park’s future bright, but soiled

IRVINE — If you go up in the big orange balloon that rises 500 feet above what may someday become the fabled Orange County Great Park, take a look at the panoramic view.

To the north are the San Gabriel mountains; to the southwest is Newport Beach — some say you can see to Catalina if it’s clear. And immediately below is a whole lot of dirt and construction.

It’s a nice view, but if you’re from Newport Beach, beware — you’ll see something that might reduce you to tears, or at least heavy sighs.

Just over the earthen mound that surrounds the fixed balloon’s platform are aircraft hangars and runways. They’re the ashes of Newport’s dream of a second commercial airport in Orange County that would remove the threat of expansion at John Wayne Airport.

The “first phase” of the 1,347-acre Great Park opens today, but a look Friday from the basket of the helium balloon shows the balloon is really about all that’s there, aside from a price tag reported at more than $1 billion. (A Great Park spokeswoman said Friday they’re still calculating total costs.)

Of course, few people in Newport-Mesa may trek to the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to see the balloon or the features that are planned to start opening yearly by 2009: a two-mile canyon filled with plants and walking trails, a botanic garden, a 10,000-seat amphitheater and a 165-acre sports park.

For some, a hint of bitterness lingers from the airport fight.

Newport counted on El Toro as a site for a second airport, former Newport Mayor Evelyn Hart said, and it was disappointing to lose a public vote in 2002, when voters supported rezoning the base as a public park with housing.

“That took awhile to get over that,” she said.

While many in Newport Beach have moved on from the airport battle, their new concern is about all the housing planned for the Great Park. Newport community leader Debra Allen, a self-described “park person,” called it “the great housing tract.”

“I think it’s great for Irvine,” Newport Beach City Councilman Don Webb said. “I think it’s providing a lot of housing and businesses. It’s going to create a lot of traffic in a very congested area.”

Parks booster Jan Vandersloot said he’ll go to the Great Park, but then he never supported an airport there. (He can get away with saying that in Newport because he doesn’t support expansion of John Wayne Airport either.)

The big question for most Newport-Mesans seems to be how the Great Park will ever be paid for — and whether Irvine folks knew that was a problem when they convinced people to vote against an airport.

“I think they knew early on that you’re not going to be able to develop 4,700 acres into this big, beautiful open space park and pay for it,” Costa Mesan Byron De Arakal said.

Newport airport activist Tom Naughton said he might try the Great Park’s ponds if they put some bass in there. But of the future residents who will populate the housing there, he said, “I just hope none of those people are planning to fly anyplace.”

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IF YOU GO

WHAT: Events at the Orange County Great Park, including helium balloon rides, vintage aircraft flyover, bike raffle and live entertainment

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. today

WHERE: Great Park, off Marine Way, near Sand Canyon Drive and the 5 Freeway

INFO: Online at www.ocgp.org, or call (949) 724-OCGP