Newport Annexation Proposal Opposed

An overflow crowd of more than 400 people packed an informal Newport-Mesa PTA meeting into the late hours Monday night to hear--and largely jeer--plans for the proposed annexation of part of south Irvine into the northeastern corner of Newport Beach.

Irvine and Newport officials began discussing the annexation in 1995, and the proposal resurfaced this summer.

But the crowd on Monday night feared that the annexation would tax Newport Beach schools.

Newport Beach City Manager Kevin J. Murphy told the crowded auditorium that from a governmental standpoint, it makes more sense for Newport Beach to include the area, which he described as “an island” to Irvine.

“This is in an area that will be oriented to Newport Beach, not Irvine,” he said.

The annexation would cover a fat crescent of land on the south side of the San Joaquin Hills toll road, bordered on the southeast by Ford Road and southwest by MacArthur Boulevard. The Irvine Co. has begun grading the site for its Bonita Village housing development, a mix of about 290 single-family homes, a 1,100-unit apartment complex, a small shopping center and a series of parks and ball fields.

“There’s going to be a significant change from what you have there today, which is nothing,” Murphy said.

The issue next will be taken up by the Newport Beach Planning Commission on Thursday night.

If the land remains in Irvine, the development would include an elementary school, because Irvine Unified School District does not have room for the additional students. Under the annexation, the school site would be replaced by more housing, and the new children would be absorbed into the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

Newport-Mesa officials estimate the project would add 430 new students--210 in grades K-6 and the rest in grades 7-12--to the district’s estimated 20,000 enrolled students.

“It’s a relatively small number,” said Mac Bernd, superintendent for the Newport-Mesa district. “We can do it.”

But doing it painlessly is another matter.

Initially, residents of the adjacent Harborview neighborhood feared the project would send a flood of new students into the Roy O. Andersen Elementary School, already near capacity. But parental opposition and a request from the developer led district officials to rule out adding the students to that school.

“We have a number of options that would not involve building a new school,” Bernd said.

District officials will review six of those options, including reopening the shuttered East Bluff Elementary School, with the school board Oct. 14, and will present a specific proposal on Oct. 21, Bernd said.

In addition to reopening East Bluff, the district also could enlarge Newport Coast Elementary School, under design to be opened in the fall of 1999, or distribute the students among other elementary schools, such as Harbor View and Lincoln.

Absorbing students into Corona del Mar High School would be much simpler, since there are only 1,700 students now enrolled in a school designed to hold 2,700.

“It would actually help the high school,” Bernd said.