Countywide : Upper Newport Park Renovation OKd

The Board of Supervisors approved Tuesday a sweeping renovation of the Upper Newport Bay Regional Park that includes building a new nature education center and clearing out decades worth of non-native plant life.

The supervisors voted unanimously to move forward with the multimillion-dollar plan to revitalize the ecologically fragile area, a project that some critics say costs too much and will close off access to many trails.

The project, which could cost as much as $6.3 million, will next go before the California Coastal Commission for a coastal development permit. Grants and private donations toward the project already total $2 million.

The centerpiece of the project is an underground interpretive center beneath a sloping knoll and a 100-space gravel parking lot. The center, which would be anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, would teach visitors about the park’s plants and wildlife with exhibits and presentations, said Project Manager Denton Turner.

But Corona del Mar resident Carla Brockman told supervisors that the center is a useless expense.

“This (project) is a scam and a sham,” Brockman said. “My idea of an interpretive center would be some plexiglass displays along the trails identifying wildlife.”

Brockman and others opposed to the project also questioned the need to remove trails from the park, which would restrict park use by the equestrians, dog owners and mountain bicyclists.

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said he was “saddened” by their opposition to a plan that would preserve a “great treasure.”

The project would indeed eliminate some of the unplanned, informal paths that crisscross the 138-acre park and which are used by dogs, horseback riders and cyclists. Turner said it is a necessary concession for the park’s health, which has been battered through the years by horses and erosion.

The project would also periodically close 80-acre portions of the park to remove non-native plants, such as pampas grass, and replace them with indigenous vegetation, another effort to return the area to its natural state.