Fairview Park's Glider Field May Cross Placentia. Here's What Else the Plan Changes on Your Walk.

The strip at the center of Costa Mesa's longest-running park argument would measure about 300 feet by 50 feet. That is the proposed size of a new runway for radio-controlled gliders on the east side of Fairview Park. It would sit on old fill about 300 feet northwest of the Goat Hill Junction train station, among wild oats, black mustard and tocalote.

According to Goat Hill Rodeo, city staff told the Fairview Park Steering Committee on Oct. 14 that they plan to bring the Fairview Park Master Plan Update back to the City Council for final review and adoption on Nov. 17. Most of the attention will go to that runway. For anyone who walks, runs or bikes the park's trails, though, the plan keeps almost everything as it is, and nearly all of its visible change comes down to one move across Placentia Avenue.

What the plan leaves alone

The city's recirculated Initial Study and Mitigated Negative Declaration, dated July 2026, spells out the baseline in plain terms.

The nine entrances, listed north to south, are Canary Drive, Santa Ana River, East Side, Wetlands, Lawn, East Side south, Canyon Drive and Pacific Avenue, plus the main gate on Placentia. Whichever one you use now, you can keep using it.

The Orange County Model Engineers' railroad sees no changes either. Volunteers laid nearly five miles of narrow-gauge track over ten years. The railroad is free to the public one weekend a month, and the city's document says it often draws more than 5,000 visitors on a weekend. With the hours, the trail system and the trains all staying put, the glider field is the only big thing left to move.

How a field from the 1960s ended up inside the vernal pool watershed

The Harbor Soaring Society has flown radio-controlled model aircraft on the southern part of the western mesa since the early 1960s. In 2005, a reshaped field about 150 by 470 feet was graded inside the vernal pool watershed. The club used it with the city's permission until the pandemic closed the park in March 2020. The city provisionally reopened the field on weekends in 2023. Today flying is limited to non-powered gliders on the first and third Saturdays of the month.

The pools next to that field are habitat for two protected species of fairy shrimp, the Daily Pilot reported in November 2025. The paper also listed burrowing owls, the coastal gnatcatcher, Crotch's bumblebee, the least Bell's vireo and the southern tarplant among the park's other rare residents. In the same story, the Daily Pilot quoted a Sept. 26 letter from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife:

"[The California Department of Fish and Wildlife] strongly supports relocation of the model airplane flying field, as its continued operation in the vernal pool complex is in direct conflict with the preservation and management of this important park feature."

The flyers see it differently. Harbor Soaring Society President Mat Garcia told the Council the field and its community have coexisted with the species in the pools for decades, the Daily Pilot reported. "Glider flying at Fairview park is 61 years old," he said. "It's [enjoyed by] families, veterans, teachers, engineers, students and kids." Kohl Crecelius, chair of the city's Fairview Park Steering Committee, supports the move. "The real cost of this process is being paid by the rest of our city's residents who are not getting the park they deserve," he said at the same hearing, according to the paper.

That hearing shows how heavily the field weighs on the process. Of the 195 written comments sent in beforehand, as many as 155 opposed the draft plan's updates, 29 supported them and 11 were general. The Council heard about two hours of testimony and then tabled the item. The Council gave direction in December 2025. Its environmental review then ran twice: first April 29 to May 29, 2026, and again July 29 to Aug. 28, 2026. The second round took comments only on the new material about the field's relocation.

Across Placentia, beside the trains

If the plan is adopted, the field would shrink to about a third of its current footprint, from about 1.62 acres to about 0.5 acre. Part of the surface would be decomposed granite, and the rest would be cleared of vegetation from time to time. The city would help install a glider launch area and runway, pilot stations and a pit area, a storage shed, an information kiosk and power. The shed and kiosk would take up a small part of the existing train station parking lot.

The case for the site rests on a 2025 study by Hamilton Biological, which describes it as "one of the least ecologically sensitive areas in the park, being located on fill material and surrounded by the model railroad track, with walking paths to west, north, and east." A low post-and-cable barrier would go around the northern part of the east-side vernal pool watershed, matching the one that already protects its southern part.

On the ground, two of the park's busiest weekend activities would share one entry point. Flyers would park in the existing train station lot and reach the field by an existing maintenance road. OCME runs its free rides on the third full weekend of every month, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with no tickets or reservations. Under the current glider schedule, the third-Saturday flying session falls on the same day as a train weekend in both November and December 2026: Nov. 21 and Dec. 19.

The western mesa, where gliders now fly, would be left to the habitat work the plan calls for there.

The slower change happens on the trails

Moving the field is the change you would see right away. The plan's other changes would come gradually, on the trails themselves. The document says the city "may in the long-run determine that one or more existing trails need to be removed or curtailed" to protect habitat. It also says excess trails in the Mesa area may eventually have to go to protect sensitive biological and cultural resources. It does not name which segments. Future trail work would use natural materials to mark the edges, and enforcement would focus on keeping out unauthorized motorized vehicles.

The habitat goals explain where the plan is headed. They include removing improper fill and replanting degraded parts of the Mesa, bluffs, vernal pools and wetland areas. They also include continuing a project to create 35 acres of wetlands and native scrub in the park's northwest corner, and rehabilitating and protecting the vernal pools in the central and southern parts of the site.

The plan's connections point outward. The city's bikeway plan calls for links to the Santa Ana River Trail through Fairview Park, by way of Talbert Regional Park trails and the bridges over the Greenville-Banning Channel and the Santa Ana River. The bridge over the Fairview Channel at the park's eastern tip links the isolated northeast corner to the railroad area. At Canary Drive, a 12-foot grade change and a stairway separate the pedestrian connection from the park, and the document says a trail connection is possible there "if the obstacles of grade and water mains can be overcome."

Three dates in November

As of this week, the city's project page still points to the recirculated draft and does not yet list a final document or an adoption hearing. Watch that page for the Council agenda. Around the meeting, there are two chances to spend time in the parts of the park the plan affects most:

1. Saturday, Nov. 14, 9 to 11 a.m.: The Fairview Park Alliance and city staff hold a volunteer habitat restoration morning at 2525 Placentia Ave. The group runs one every second Saturday of the month.
2. Tuesday, Nov. 17: The Council meeting where staff plan to bring the master plan back for final review and adoption, as reported by Goat Hill Rodeo.
3. Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 21 and 22: This is the third full weekend of the month, OCME's regular slot for free rides at Goat Hill Junction. Check OCME's run-day page before you go. The proposed field site lies about 300 feet northwest of the station.

Fairview Park's open space is part of what shapes the streets around it, and we follow its plans the way we follow anything that shapes a home's surroundings. If you'd like to talk about how the park and its edges figure into what your home is worth, bouHAUS is glad to have that conversation over coffee, or on a walk along the mesa trails before Nov. 17.