Land Plan Creates Unusual Alliance : Partnership: A tentative pact involving two pristine parcels has the Irvine Co. and the Newport Conservancy working together.

It could have shaped up to be a typical battle between an environmental group and a mega-developer. Instead, it has turned into a lesson in practical compromise.

With open space in the city diminishing rapidly, the Newport Conservancy, an environmental group, and members of the community in the past have raised concerns about plans by the Irvine Co. to build a 1,000-home development around and near Upper Newport Bay. Now, however, the conservancy and the landowner may be on the verge of smoothing over fundamental differences and seeking common ground.

Right now, a tentative pact between the two entities centers around an agreement under which the Irvine Co. would sell two parcels of the bay to the conservancy and provide support and some matching funds in the environmental group’s Herculean task of raising $80 million to buy the land and save the city’s last remaining remnants of wildlife. But whether the tentative peace is strong enough to strike a permanent deal over the parcels--Upper Castaways and Newporter North--remains to be seen.

The two parcels are the Irvine Co.’s biggest chunks of open space and are targeted as the site of 360 of the new homes. But they are also currently home to hundreds of creatures and a rich archeological history, a delicately balanced ecosystem that many fear will be irreversibly thrashed if not preserved.

“It’s got to be a public-private partnership,” said Meredith Meilling, a board member of the conservancy, echoing the opinion of many involved.

Irvine Co. officials have said they are willing to sell the land to anyone who can afford it. And they took the conservancy seriously enough as a potential buyer to provide the group with $25,000 in seed money and an additional $100,000 in matching grants.

“They offered it in their role as a willing seller,” said Robert Harrigan, the conservancy’s chief financial officer. “We were very pleased because we were a fledgling organization and we could tell people we were not adversaries.”

The conservancy has about $250,000 in the bank, raised primarily through charter memberships and the matching grant from the Irvine Co. The group has so far concentrated on building its membership and hasn’t yet launched a major fund-raising campaign, Harrigan said. But the group hopes to begin such a campaign by the end of the year.

Still, “we’re further along now than I had thought we would be at this time,” Harrigan said. “I think we’re doing OK.”

In fact, Harrigan said, both sides are doing all right by engaging in a joint venture of sorts. “It’s good business for (the Irvine Co.),” Harrigan said, and the corporate name and financial backing helps the conservancy in promoting the group’s effort to save the last undeveloped pieces of land left in Newport Beach.

The land is home to a veritable microcosm of wildlife, from coyotes to striped skunks, garter snakes, ground squirrels, tiny tree frogs and alligator lizards. Four pairs of gnatcatchers have nested in the area, and dozens of other rare birds have been known to visit or live in the area.

The entire Upper Newport Bay wildlife area serves as one of the state’s four primary flight routes for migrating birds, and individual parcels are frequented by coyotes that come from nearby canyons to feed on smaller prey.

Surprisingly, the land targeted for development has remained a fully functioning ecosystem despite being just minutes from Newport Center and busy Coast Highway. The effect of building on the land and weakening one link in that system is what environmentalists fear most--if, for example, development prevents coyotes from coming down from canyons to feed on raccoons, the raccoons will have full run to eat as many bird eggs as they please, potentially wiping out entire rare species.

“You take a look at Upper Newport Bay as an intact ecosystem--it’s still working. Even after all the development, it’s still functioning,” Meilling said. “But how much more can it take? That’s the question.”

In response to those concerns, the Irvine Co. has offered to give more than half its total holdings--140 of 246 acres--to the city to be used as open space and parkland.

Also as part of its agreement, the company would follow a host of federal guides for replacing wetlands, including freshwater marshes that are now on three of the land sites, either by maintaining them on the parcels or relocating them nearby, perhaps in the state reserve.

The company would need to conduct a complex series of pre-building tests to determine how many fossils and ruins are on the land. Archeologists have studied barely 1% of the area and have found remains of jewelry, tools and bones that they say show people were fishing and living in the area 9,000 years ago. If further studies show similar results, careful excavation and preservation of the findings will be required.

During numerous presentations of the plan, including a recent Planning Commission hearing where commissioners unanimously approved the project, Tom O. Redwitz, Irvine Co. vice president of land development, stressed repeatedly that the company hopes to have the backing of the community.

Redwitz said company representatives have met with dozens of residents’ groups throughout Newport Beach and have spoken with more than 1,000 residents in company efforts to understand the community.

Still, an army of local, state and federal agencies and environmental groups have strongly criticized the company’s development plan. They have argued that the environmental review fails on a number of levels, particularly the project’s total effect on the area and its proximity to the state reserve.

“As proposed, the development of these sites . . . threatens the functionality of the bay as a viable ecological reserve and thwarts the efforts of the last 30 years to maintain this area,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stated in a letter commenting on the city-prepared environmental review of the plan.

The local environmental group Stop Polluting Our Newport says the review “leaves decision makers and the public in the dark about the true nature of likely impacts” and calls for a revised document before any city decisions are made.

Many say the company’s bonus to the city--about $21 million in road funds in addition to the 140-acre land gift--in a swap for development rights is hardly an exchange that benefits the community since many residents don’t want new, wider roads carrying more cars through their neighborhoods. Rather than roads, some say, the financial gift should go toward buying the land.

Environmental groups and other agencies are expected to bring up those concerns to the City Council during a public hearing on the project on Aug. 24, when the city will consider the Irvine Co.’s development plans.

If the plans are approved by the city, they still need California Coastal Commission approval. The agreement between the city and the company says building would occur within the next five years, but company officials such as Redwitz, who has engineered the project from the start, plan to keep working with the conservancy during the next year to reach an agreement.