July 13, 2008

Building the Orange County Great Park: Do You Want Common, or Do You Want Visionary?

Note: I have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks on the development that is occurring at the former El Toro Marine Base. This is appropriate considering the impact the Great Park development will have on Orange County and beyond. But this will be my last on the topic for a while. In the future, I’ll write updates on the Great Park development, probably on a monthly basis.

Some have complained about the amount of time that it is taking to build the Orange County Great Park. This shows a certain amount of attention deficit disorder and a lack of understanding of what is being built. This is the development of a great metropolitan park—not the common subdivision-shopping mall-parks development. As I stated in previous posts, the housing-malls-parks development serves a purpose, but they are a dime a dozen in Orange County. The building of a metropolitan park is a more visionary and, therefore, long-term undertaking.

It might be just a matter of preference as to which is a better use of this 1,347 acres in the middle of Orange County, but I am going with the visionary. To say that a metropolitan park is not a good use for this land is similar to saying that San Diego’s Balboa Park is all very nice, but a better use for this land is to convert it into subdivisions and malls with some parks.

In hindsight some things could have been handled differently. Originally, the sports park was planned as one of the first Great Park feature to be available for public use. It would have been wise to keep the sports park, which is likely be a popular feature, on the fast track. As Doug Blonsky of New York’s Central Park Conservancy said: “I don’t think that the Great Park is necessarily behind right now, but you do want to get something in the ground growing as soon as you can.” However, Blonsky also stated that the New York Central Park Conservancy took years to perfect its master plan. Well, the sport park now is being given high priority and the preview park, which is the 27.5 acres located around the balloon site, is offering the public access to the Great Park.

Previously, I looked at the Great Park budget to answer the question: Is this thing “buildable”? My conclusion, after looking at possible revenue, was: yes, it is. Now I’ll ask and answer two other questions: First, is the Great Park development proceeding in a timely, efficient manner? Yes, for a metropolitan park in the mold of Central Park, Balboa Park or Golden Park, it is. Second, is the Great Park likely to be a benefit to Orange County and beyond? Yes. Absolutely!

Now here is my question to you concerning the Great Park development: Do you want common, or do you want visionary?

GRAPHIC COURTESY THE ORANGE COUNTY GREAT PARK CORPORATION