NEWPORT BEACH : 114 Acres Accepted for Bluff-Top Park

Orange County officials accepted 114 acres of scruffy bluff land in Upper Newport Bay on Tuesday, ending a long legal and political battle to protect the area from development.

Announcement of the action, long sought by environmentalists, won cheers from Back Bay residents and others Tuesday.

“It’s great,” said Frank Robinson, who with his wife Frances led the charge to protect the bay from a development project proposed in the early 1960s. “This is the climax of a long effort, and I think it’s wonderful.”

Under the agreement completed Tuesday, the county will immediately take over the tract from the Irvine Co., assuming responsibility for patrolling the property and managing it. That is expected to cost about $80,000 for the first year.

A $1-million private gift will pay for building a nature center on the land. The county will staff the center once it is running and expects to pay additional labor costs then as a result.

Tuesday’s action completes land acquisition for Upper Newport Bay Regional Park, 140 acres of scenic bluffs overlooking the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve. The park, most of which is spread over a flat mesa perched above the water, will open on an interim basis within the next four to six weeks, said Bob Hamilton, manager of program planning for the county Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department.

Although the park will feature trails and the nature center, it is not intended for heavy recreational use, in order to protect the birds and other wildlife that live and nest among the scrub grasses and bluffs.

“This is one of the most spectacular and environmentally sensitive areas of Southern California,” Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose district includes the new park, said after the board session Tuesday. “This will be an important ecological preserve.”