JWA changes unpopular retaining wall plan

Paul Clinton

JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT -- Airport officials have revamped plans for a

retaining wall at the southern tip of John Wayne Airport, after Santa Ana

Heights residents cried foul.

Late last year, a handful of vocal activists representing the

unincorporated community objected to the wall, saying it was unsightly

and too tall. They objected to the “harshness of the wall,” said Glen

Owens, the airport’s capital improvements manager.

Airport officials had hoped to conceal a 35,209-square-foot dirt slope

at Bristol Street off the Corona del Mar Freeway with the wall, which

would be as high as 16 feet.

“If you put up a concrete wall, the noise [from jet aircraft] is going

to bounce off into the neighborhood,” Santa Ana Heights resident Ann Watt

said. “You need to put in landscaping to absorb it.”

As a result of the outcry, and intervention by Newport Beach and

Supervisor Tom Wilson, the wall was scaled down and plans to landscape

the slope are now part of the proposal.

The changes were made, Owens said, because the airport wants to be a

good neighbor.

The Board of Supervisors, at the June 26 meeting, approved an

additional $9,900 in funding to Newport Beach-based UMA Engineering Inc.

to shift the focus of the project’s design. The firm will look at an

additional two or three alternative proposals, all of which include a

much shorter wall. It will still stretch between Red Hill and Irvine

avenues.

The wall will also help prevent erosion from the slope. During heavy

rain, mud from the slope spills onto Bristol Street, creating a hazard

for motorists.

Airport officials are also in ongoing negotiations with Caltrans to

take over control of Bristol Street and the slope. Control of the slope

is expected to fall into airport hands later this year, according to a

county report on the project.

The effort to spruce up the Bristol Street slope, which is often

littered with plastic bags and other trash, is part of a $750,000 effort

to improve the airport’s southern area.