Commentary: Potential closure of developmental center offers rare chance to increase sports fields

One of the reasons I moved to Costa Mesa more than a decade ago is because of the small-town atmosphere, the strong community involvement and the vast amenities it offered me and my young family.

As many of you know, Costa Mesa is blessed with numerous small community parks where families can take children to playgrounds, have picnics and just generally enjoy the surroundings.

We are also blessed with the natural setting of Fairview Park, which is teeming with birds, wildlife and native habitat.

While some believe there are still plans to put sports fields at Fairview Park, I am here to assure you that is not the case. In fact, the current council is unanimous in its belief that Fairview Park needs to be preserved in its natural state.

Still, with all the park space that we currently have, the truth is that Costa Mesa has the same battle as every city in the county in finding sports fields for the ever-growing army of soccer, baseball, flag football and soccer players looking for a place to play or practice.

But there is good news. We have once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change that and increase our open and green space and create a world-class sports park in Costa Mesa that will be the envy of the county.

How can we do that, you ask.

Well, at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, we began discussions on the General Plan, a detailed document that will become the blueprint for how our city will be developed over the course of the next decades.

And while the General Plan changes only affect 4% of the city, it does contain an important provision to allow us to set the parameters for what should be developed at the state-run Fairview Developmental Center.

Currently, state officials are seriously considering closure of Fairview facility, not to be confused with Fairview Park.

If that happens, my hope is that we will zone 25 acres of that 102-acre property for park and recreational use and build a park that offers state-of-the-art fields for those aforementioned youth sports players and more.

By taking just a quarter of the land for youth sports and parks, we could still have 50% of the land go toward low-density, single-family housing and the other quarter go to much needed affordable housing and other institutional uses.

Like I said, opportunities like this don’t happen every day. Most cities in the county have already been built out or are master-planned. This is a gift of land that we need to take full advantage of.

So I urge my fellow council members to strongly consider making these changes on our General Plan and join me in taking a bold step that could end our need for youth sports facilities, fields and parks once and for all.

JIM RIGHEIMER is Costa Mesa’s mayor pro-tem.