Newport Beach has a city charter requirement of 5 acres per 1,000 residents, and at its current population of 70,000 residents, Newport Beach is 92 acres shy of this requirement.

West Newport Beach is most burdened by this shortage, and Costa Mesa also lacks adequate facilities on its west side.

Remarkable to this situation, Newport-Mesa School District (yellow star) has an excess parcel of land on the Westside that is adjacent to Banning Ranch and has the potential to be used as a sports facility or be developed for industrial use or multi-use projects.

At this time, there is no organized community group that has built public interest to use this important parcel for recreation--a priority use if no school is built on this publicly owned land.

In addition, there is some potential for recreation in the existing Sunset Ridge Park (yellow circle), but public access is currently blocked by Banning Ranch. Sunset Ridge is on the corner of Superior and W. Coast Hwy. This means that no recreation is feasible until Banning Ranch is acquired and preserved.