Hey, man, where's the park?
The north part of Orange County has a notorious lack of parks and open space. And while the County of Orange spends millions on its park system annually, including vast tracts of parkland in south county, and even on the Harbor Patrol in the wealthy enclave of Newport Beach, us taxpayers up north get almost nothing. We have Craig Park and Clark Park which total about 130 acres; meanwhile the County controls around 60,000 acres of park and open space counting the new Irvine Company “gift.” Now that’s just wrong.
This post ignores the history of city-county politics over the decades.
Going back to the 1960′s and forward the County had a Master Plan of Regional Parks as part of its land use planning. That plan identified potential regional parks to be added to the system as development took place. Unfortunately over the decades some of the older cities rejected proposals for regional parks that were in their boundaries.
Nike base in Cypress was rejected by Cypress, they wanted it developed as commercial/industrial to keep the land on the tax roles, and that is what happened there. Santa Ana rejected a couple of parks along the Santa Ana River, same with Anaheim (though Anaheim did accept Yorba Regional Park.) Buena Park did not support the full plan for what is now a much smaller than originally planned Clark Park (identified as Los Coyotes in the County Master Plan). Since cities controlled land use decisions within their boundaries, and many fought the idea of large county parks in their jurisdictions, the opportunities for parks occurred where the county controlled land use, and that means south county. You thus need to look to current and past city electeds for what you do or do not have. North county cities did support Chino Hills State park not because they wanted a park, but because it was an alternative to a prposed Chino Hills International Airport.
Yes, this was the model for the Great Park switcheroo 30 years later. You need to look to current and past city electeds for what you do or do not have, not members of the County Board of Supervisors who yielded to the “wisdom” of varoius City Councils in abandoning plans for parks in their cities. In recent years, the Board of Supervisors has allocated county park money, including the county’s share of State Park bonds voted in by the California voters, to cities to help them with park and rec. facilities.
Millions have been allocated by the Supervisors to the cities in this way while existing County Regional Parks, such as Irvine Park, needed the money for capital maintenance including sewers. I believe the Brea swimming pool and Fullerton’s Tri-Cities park received significant county money for rebuilding these recreation facilities. So, as you might suspect, when I hear cities whine about perceived lack of park space I have little sympathy for them.