How much park space do we need?
The generous land baron Don Bren and his Irvine Company have recently signed over 20,000 acres of wilderness to OC Parks. Two thousand of those acres will be dedicated as the Blackstar Canyon Regional Park for the public to enjoy.
This puts the total non-developed Orange County open space wild lands donated by Irvine Co. at well over 50,000 acres.
With the dedication of the 2,000-acre Blackstar park one has to ask, why does OC need Irvine’s so-called “Great Park.”
The truth is, we don’t. Over half of the 90,000-acre Irvine Ranch property is now permanent dedicated open space that is well dispersed and accessible to all local residents to enjoy.
With so much open space park land, not to mention the countless community parks and recreation centers throughout the county, it would be overkill and irresponsible to continue to lobby tax dollars to build Irvine’s multi-billion dollar Great Park.
In reality, it benefits only the pride of a few local politicians who are demanding that we must have it. I personally would take the wild lands and Blackstar park to view God’s natural park lands than pay to enter a generic, just-another-manicured park.
But if the local politicians insist that we have a Central Park similar to the one in New York, then rip out John Wayne Airport’s runways and throw down some grass seed.
It’s already surrounded by high-rise buildings and residential communities and is more centrally located than El Toro.
Russ Niewiarowski Newport Beach
