NEWPORT BEACH : Residents to Study Revised Castaways Plan

The Cliff Haven Community Assn. will have a community meeting tonight to study the latest Irvine Co. plan for its Castaways development at the headlands of Newport Bay.

The meeting will be at 7 p.m. in the library at Ensign Junior High School, 2000 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach. Representatives from the Irvine Co. and the city Parks and Recreation Commission, Planning Commission and City Council are to attend.

The new plan would allow the Irvine Co. to add another 15 or 16 homes to the 26-acre gated community. The Planning Commission had approved 119 houses.

The developer’s initial proposal for open space at the planned Upper and Lower Castaways projects had included a 4.8-acre active park at 16th Street and Dover Avenue and a smaller wilderness park at the headlands of the Back Bay. It also included a bluff-top bicycle trail that would connect with the city’s bicycle trail network.

But a later proposal, submitted after the Planning Commission approved the 119-house development on Dec. 8, would eliminate the upper active park site and bicycle trail, and put both the active park and the wilderness area on the 3.5-acre plot at the headlands.

Plans show a belt of green slope surrounding two Little League baseball diamonds, a lookout point and switchback trail to the headlands below. That space also includes a practice field for soccer.

The latest plan also calls for filling in the existing wetlands and re-establishing them elsewhere on the development.

The council sent the new plan back to the Irvine Co. and told it to seek neighborhood input on the changes. The council will conduct a public hearing on the proposal Feb. 27. The entire plan must receive council approval before construction begins.