COSTA MESA : Staking a Claim on Future of Open Space

Visitors describe Fairview Park as an oasis--a quiet patch of rugged open space set upon a mesa overlooking the Santa Ana River and Pacific Ocean. On a clear day, the views extend to Catalina Island.

For several years, a group of Costa Mesa residents has fought to keep the 250-acre park basically the way it is--covered with native vegetation and free of athletic facilities, baseball diamonds and turf.

“You feel like you are totally removed from all the high-rises and pollution when you are out there,” said Richard J. Mehren, who heads the Fairview Park Citizens Committee. “The views are beautiful. It’s like a beautiful field.”

Mehren and other residents have been largely successful in thwarting development at the park.

The city plans to spend $25,000 later this year to create a master plan for the area, and committee members expect to have an influential role in the process. Eventually, the residents would like the city to pay for a full-scale cleanup of the park and plant more native brush and grasses.

Because of the park’s secluded location off Placentia Avenue, illegal garbage dumping has been a problem, Mehren said. Neighborhood cleanup campaigns have turned up a discarded car as well as chunks of concrete, furniture and tires.

“It’s amazing some of the things we found in there,” Mehren said. “Man has degraded it himself.”

Fairview Park has a colorful history. Archeologists last year discovered evidence that Native Americans used the area hundreds of years ago to store ocean shellfish.

Early this century, the area was used as farmland to grow grain for cattle. Later, the county took possession of the land and planned to develop it into a regional park through the mid-1980s.

But some residents opposed the county proposal, which called for the construction of baseball fields and a fishing lake. Several years ago, the land was purchased by the city.

Not everyone in Costa Mesa wants to keep Fairview Park in its current condition. Some residents who criticize the lack of sports facilities for young people have suggested building baseball and soccer fields at the site.

They point out that Fairview Park is the city’s largest park and one of the few locations in Costa Mesa that can accommodate a sports center.

Keith Van Holt, Costa Mesa’s director of community services, said the city might consider some sort of an athletic development there if it cannot secure new sports facilities elsewhere.