In August, the city-owned Great Park celebrated the opening of its 194-acre sports park’s first phase. It was the first major facility to open at the Great Park since a new City Council in 2013 decided to change the course of the park’s development.

The sports park – which is the biggest of its kind in Orange County, larger than Disneyland and Disney California Adventure combined – will eventually feature 18 new soccer and multi-use fields, 25 tennis courts, 12 baseball and softball fields and five sand volleyball courts. Completion is expected this summer, according to the latest estimate by the city.

The sports park is just the first of many features Irvine officials say are coming to the Great Park in the next few years. The 1,300-acre Great Park on the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro site should match the size of San Diego’s Balboa Park, and be more than twice the size of New York City’s Central Park, when fully built.

Developer FivePoint is building 713 acres of the Great Park, including the sports park, for the city in exchange for approval to build more than 4,600 homes adjacent to the park. That portion will also include an 18-hole golf course, trails, agricultural fields, playgrounds, open space and a wildlife corridor.

FivePoint, which plans to spend about $250 million on these facilities, will turn them over to the city as they are developed.

Here’s the latest information on the rest of the planned amenities at the Great Park:

• The Wild Rivers water park, which closed in 2011, is eyeing for a return to Irvine at the Great Park by the summer of 2019. The City Council recently approved the operators doing the necessary environmental studies before finalizing lease terms.
• The city is trying to hire a consultant who will help the city make a decision on what should be built at the yet-to-be-developed, 233-acre Cultural Terrace, the final major piece of the Great Park. The city is exploring an amphitheater, a lake, a library and museums there, while advocates for botanical gardens, children’s and fire museums, and a rafting and kayaking white water park are lobbying for their share.
• Construction has begun on a 2.5-mile long wildlife corridor at the eastern end of the park. It is intended to be a pathway for bobcats, coyotes, California gnatcatchers and other wildlife species to move safely between the Santa Ana Mountains and the coast. The corridor, accessible only to wildlife, is expected to open mid-2019.
• The Anaheim Ducks’ 270,000-square-foot community ice complex and practice facility, the largest of its kind in California, is scheduled to open by the end of the year.

The center’s Board of Supervisors on Thursday, April 26, will review draft concepts for a master plan defining what the 150-acre event venue will look like over the next decade.

Staff members began working on the plan in 2016 and hosted community workshops to get ideas on what people wanted at the facility. The board will consider a tentative plan on Thursday.

Here are the estimated timeline and costs if the board decides to move forward with that plan:

• Phase 1: Expand administration building (starting in 2020; $22.8 million)
• Phase 2: Replace livestock barns, improve action sports arena and add horse paddocks (2022; $21.8 million)
• Phase 3: Replace equestrian center with multi-purpose space, restrooms and showers and parking spaces (2024; $16.1 million)
• Phase 4: New education center and Centennial Farm upgrades (2026; $20.6 million)
• Phase 5: New perimeter fence, way-finding signage and PA system and other site improvements (2028; $9.4 million)
• Phase 6: Relocate main entrance (2030; $50.8 million)
• Phase 7: Parking structure –if needed – at Arlington Drive and Fairview Road and other projects (2031; $27.4 million)

(For details on the draft concepts, click here.)

Parking spaces at the site could increase to 10,454 from 9,253.

The equestrian community balked when the draft concepts released early this month proposed demolishing the equestrian center, which features 180 horse stalls. Horse paddocks elsewhere on the property are proposed.

Horse advocates were hoping the renovation would make the equestrian center into a world-class facility, said Gibran Stout, director of OC Vaulting, which offers lessons at the center.

“We are going (to the board meeting) with hopeful optimism that it’s just a mistake,” she said.

Lisa Sabo, a horse trainer at the equestrian center, said the stables are used throughout the year. She said the equestrian center received only positive comments during the master site plan workshops she’s attended.

There’s no place in north Orange County that can accommodate the horses at the fairgrounds, she said. “Horses and agriculture are an essential part to a society, and we need to keep people grounded.”

OC Fair & Event Center spokeswoman Terry Moore emphasized that nothing has been finalized.

“Since the board and public are reviewing draft concepts starting next week, there is no final proposed plan for any portion of the property,” she said.

The center’s board, appointed by the state governor, will review cost projections and approve its budget each year, Moore said.

The last time the OC Fair & Event Center adopted a master site plan was in August 2003. That project included construction of the Main Mall and The Hangar and refurbishment of the Pacific Amphitheatre. The phased construction was completed in 2015.

The OC Fair & Event Center hosts about 150 events a year, 45 percent of which are consumer and trade shows. In 2016, the center took in $46.2 million in revenue, with a profit of $6.7 million.

The community can address the board on the master plan at the April 26 meeting, which starts at 9 a.m. at the center’s administration building. Go through Gate 4 off of Arlington Drive in Costa Mesa. Agenda: goo.gl/Y9zoCy

Wagner posted a video address to the Irvine community following the meeting, saying the mayors will send a letter to the county proposing the site.

The property, on Santiago Canyon Road in the unincorporated Silverado community, is now used as a county library, which opened July 2017. Silverado is in the hills east of Irvine and Tustin.

The county, which had representatives at Thursday’s meeting, will update mayors at their next meeting on May 10, Wagner said in an interview Thursday afternoon.

Wagner said the mayors are aware the property has some limitations – such as the lack of nearby homeless support services and public transportation serving the site.

“Is it a perfect site? No,” Wagner said. “But it does seem to be a potentially viable option with a lot of space.”

Thursday’s discussion at Ole Hanson Beach Club in San Clemente was prompted by U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter’s request to South County cities that they find a way to shelter their proportionate share of the county’s homeless. Carter is overseeing a pair of civil rights lawsuits related to the recent clearing of tent encampments at the Santa Ana River Trail and at the Civic Center in Santa Ana.

Lake Forest Mayor Jim Gardner said South County city managers came up with two potential sites for the mayors to talk about and to present to Carter – the Library of the Canyons and the Los Pinos Conservation Camp.

The latter is in the Cleveland National Forest near the Riverside County border. It used to be the county’s juvenile detention camp. The mayors agreed the site was probably not realistic, Wagner said. In addition, the property is owned by the federal government, not the county.

Gardner said his understanding is if the Silverado location is used, the library would close and it would be filled with cots. There are no homes nearby, though a preschool is next door.

Gardner said he was the only mayor to oppose the Silverado location.

A retired clinical psychologist, Gardner said the government shouldn’t put hundreds of homeless people into one place. Instead, the county should help fund smaller facilities that already exist in South County to help house homeless people in their respective cities.

“I believe this problem was created by the (county) Board of Supervisors and their lack of action over the years,” Gardner said.

Laguna Niguel Mayor Elaine Gennawey said the city leaders also talked about programs and temporary housing help they can offer, even if they don’t host a physical emergency shelter site.

Gardner emphasized Thursday’s meeting was just a “preliminary move forward,” because it will be up to the county and Carter what happens next and any proposal by mayors must be approved by their respective city councils.

“I think we definitely moved in the right direction,” Aliso Viejo Mayor Dave Harrington said. “It was good that we got together. We understand the issue better as a group, and we discussed what we should do moving forward.”

Residents, who’ve been talking on social media, say they learned about the potential sale from a real estate flyer released by the golf course’s broker, Cushman & Wakefield.

The flyer touts the 18-hole public golf course, built in 1964, as “one of the largest in-fill land development opportunities left in the city of Irvine and Orange County’s Greater Airport area” with zoning that “allows for a mix of immediate and future potential development.”

The 147-acre site has “true potential as a reconfigured golf course with golf-adjacent residential and recreational uses,” the flyer reads.

But, city staff members recently told the City Council the flyer contained “some misleading information,” particularly in its assertion that the city’s pending update to the General Plan, which guides future projects, would increase the density of development allowed at the property.

Here’s what the flyer says: “The city of Irvine is currently in the process of updating its General Plan and is examining other possible land use designations, which creates an opportunity to create value through further densification of the site.”

American Golf Corp., the owner of the property, declined an interview, but provided an emailed response.

“There was no intent to be misleading,” the company wrote. “American Golf welcomes the opportunity to work cooperatively alongside the city in completing this sale and anticipates that any potential redevelopment would include amenities that benefit local residents.”

Current zoning of the site allows for up to 47 additional housing units and 34,729 square feet of commercial recreational use; any developments above these limits would require City Council approval, city officials said.

Allowing a higher level of development concerns Dirk Larson, who lives on the golf course and is on the Rancho San Joaquin Homeowner’s Association board. He attended an April 10 meeting to address the City Council.

“Let’s have a good master plan and not destroy what we’ve all worked so hard on to create this wonderful city,” Larson told the council. “More traffic, more homes; I’m just concerned that that’s going to affect all of us in terms of our quality of life here.”

City officials said they contacted the broker to express concern about the flyer and requested corrections to the language used. The broker has since updated the flyer as requested.

In its email statement, American Golf said it hoped upon the sale of the property to continue to operate the course.

They had 180 days to submit at least about 12,000 signatures, 10 percent of Irvine’s registered voters, to put the initiative on the Nov. 6 ballot. The deadline was 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 16.

“No petitions were received by the city of Irvine at the close of business yesterday,” city spokesman Craig Reem wrote in an email Tuesday. “Subsequently, this ballot measure does not qualify for the Nov. 6 general municipal election.”

Last year, a group of residents, Irvine for Responsible Growth, submitted to the city an initiative “to give the people of Irvine control of their future.”

Their idea was to require developers to get voter approval for any project adding significant traffic, 40 or more housing units or 10,000 square feet of non-residential use and that would need general plan or zoning changes. Many residents say traffic congestion is the most pressing issue facing Irvine, and some blame it on over development.

Karen Jaffe, one of the proponents, told the newspaper in September that the initiative — modeled after a voter-approved measure in Costa Mesa — would be a way for residents to compete against “the paid lobbyists and campaign contributions from the development community.”

Jaffe declined to comment on Tuesday about not submitting for the deadline.

Development, business and other special interest groups and wealthy individuals poured at least $1.1 million into a network of political committees –which are independent from candidates – that were trying to influence voters in the 2016 Irvine mayoral and City Council races.

Opponents, however, said the initiative could hurt economic growth and slow down crucial developments in Orange County’s third largest city and employment hub.

To counteract the growth control initiative, Mayor Don Wagner in March introduced a ballot measure that would prevent such a regulation from being applied to projects whose revenue for the city exceeds costs. The council approved that measure to be on the June ballot.

To mark the milestone, attendees enjoyed pancake breakfast before going on a hike through Quail Hill.

The 1988 ballot initiative affirmed an agreement between the city and its major developer, Irvine Co. The company agreed to donate to the city open lands as preservation areas in exchange for rights to develop other areas in the city.

These preservation areas, called the Irvine Open Space Preserve, cannot be sold, leased or used for any commercial, office, industrial or residential purpose. Even cell towers, according to the city, are prohibited.

About 5,200 of the more than 8,000 acres originally envisioned in the agreement have been transferred to the city. These include Quail Hill, Shady Canyon, Bommer Canyon and Orchard Hills. Lands in the Portola Springs area along Irvine’s northern border are expected to be added to the Irvine Open Space Preserve in the future.

Residents can access parts of the preserve for hiking, mountain biking and horse riding, check letsgooutside.org for opportunities.

This year also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the designation of the former Irvine Ranch as a California Natural Landmark. About 40,000 acres of the natural open space, which include the Irvine Open Space Preserve, received the first-ever California Natural Landmark designation in 2008 because of its biological and geological significance.

The family-friendly event will feature agricultural-themed crafts, a petting zoo, live music, a photo booth and blacksmith demonstrations.

There will also be outdoor tours of the ranch with docents sharing details on what the land was like in the past. Tours begin every hour starting at 10:30 a.m., with the last tour at 1:30 p.m.

Local historical societies will be on site. Food will be available for purchase.

Irvine Ranch Jamboree is hosted by OC Parks.

If you go

When: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, April 21

Where: Irvine Ranch Historic Park, 13042 Old Myford Road, Irvine; parking will be available at St. Thomas More Catholic Parish, 51 Market Place

Cost: Free

Details: 714-973-6607 or oldcourthouse@ocparks.com

Starting with five test intersections, Irvine drivers will no longer have to wait for a traffic signal to turn green to make left turns if there’s no oncoming traffic. Soon a flashing yellow arrow will let drivers make the turn if it is safe.

The City Council on Tuesday, April 10, approved installing new streetlight fixtures at five intersections featuring four left-turn arrows: green (oncoming traffic is stopped with a red light), flashing yellow (if it is safe, you can turn, but on-coming traffic has a green light), steady yellow (be prepared to stop) and red (sit tight, don’t go anywhere).

Currently, left turns at these intersections are only allowed with the green arrow.

“There are intersections that don’t have quite the load on them, and we find ourselves sitting at the intersection for three, four, five minutes waiting,” Councilwoman Lynn Schott said. “Five, six, seven cars could have turned left because there’s no oncoming traffic and no danger, but we are prohibited by that red arrow. I think this will alleviate a lot of frustration that drivers have throughout the city.”

Intersections that will be testing the new flashing yellows by February (construction is scheduled to begin in August) are:

• Culver Drive and Florence
• Sand Canyon Avenue and Towngate
• Rockfield Boulevard and Oldfield
• Irvine Center Drive and Tesla
• Irvine Center Drive and Odyssey

The city will monitor the five intersections for at least six months before deciding whether to install the new system at more than a dozen additional intersections throughout the city. Fullerton and Tustin already have some different kinds of signals in place that similarly allow the “protected-permissive left turns.”

Council members said they worry some about pedestrian and bicyclist safety, especially near schools and parks.

“We want to be very very careful because it’s such a new idea,” Councilwoman Christina Shea said. “I hope it works. I hope it gets our traffic moving quicker. But it’s the education component that we really need to be focused on.”

The project is expected to cost up to $1.73 million for the first phase. That includes includes other improvements at the five intersections such as new signal poles, video detection systems and traffic monitoring cameras.

To further help traffic issues, the city also plans this year to synchronize lights at freeway on- and off-ramps, widen University Drive between MacArthur Boulevard and Campus Drive, and improve the Culver Drive and University Drive intersection, Mayor Don Wagner said in March.

City officials want to find out desired features before drafting a new park design. The renovation project is intended to refresh the 15-acre former cattle camp that was built in 1967.

For those unable to attend the workshop, project information and an online survey will be available at cityofrivine.org/cattlecamp after the workshop.

The free workshop will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Las Lomas Community Center, 10 Federation Way.

Information: Project development administrator Darlene Nicandro at 949-724-7462.

Flip on TV news or pick up a Japanese paper and you will be confronted by a flood of images and stories of the Angels’ new two-way star hitting home runs in three straight games and pitching a near perfect seven innings. The most talked about American figure this week in Japan isn’t Trump, it’s Babe Ruth.

Many of the 127 million people living in Japan wake up to watch Angels games live on TV — often before 5 a.m.

“People are going crazy… Ohtani fever is unbelievably high,” said Kazuma Yano, who is visiting Southern California from a suburb of Osaka, Japan’s second biggest city.

“The first thing people talk about now,” he added, “is Ohtani.”

That excitement is playing out at Angel Stadium. A week into the season — and just days into what might morph into “Ohtanimania” if he continues to play the way he has — Japanese fans are showing up in Ohtani jerseys and T-shirts.

On Sunday, when Ohtani made his home pitching debut, those fans were part of the biggest regular season day game gate at Angel Stadium in 20 years.

A cluster cheered in Japanese from field level seats behind the Angels dugout, waving Japanese flags and holding up hand-made signs that, in Japanese, said things like “Go Ohtani” and “Sho Time” and, referencing his number, “Love 17.”

Alyssa Gabel, a long-time Angels fan from Placentia, welcomes the buzz.

“There was more than the usual excitement,” Gabel said, adding the Big A atmosphere on Sunday reminded her of the 2002 World Series. “It’s really cool that we can get more culture going through baseball. I know it’s huge in Japan.”

The Angels welcome the buzz, too. At the team’s stadium stores, they set up special Ohtani-oriented sections, peddling Ohtani-themed pennants, towels, caps and the like.

Yano, the fan from outside Osaka, bought his ticket online, at home, after learning that Ohtani would be pitching Sunday. It was the first day of a five-day business trip to Southern California, and the 44-year-old (along with his suitcase) took a shuttle directly from LAX to Angel Stadium.

“I consider it a half-business trip because the main purpose is to watch Ohtani,” Yano said, laughing and wearing an Ohtani jersey from the player’s Nippon Ham Fighter days.

“I’ve only bought a ticket for today,” he added, noting that he was watching solo. “But I would probably feel like watching more after this game.”

And Yano said that before Ohtani delivered — again — taking a no hitter into the seventh inning and striking out 12 on his way to a 6-1 win over the Oakland A’s.

Still, while Ohtani is dominating Japanese media the way Trump has taken up all the oxygen generated by American political news, there’s a stark difference.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who dislikes Ohtani,” said Naoyuki Yanagihara, a journalist who has covered Ohtani for Sports Nippon since 2013, his rookie year.

Yanagihara is in Southern California this season as part of pack of about 20 Japanese writers who are here to cover all things Ohtani. Everything from Ohtani’s dating life (it’s sluggish) to his food preferences (he’s fond of crepes) have been the grist of Ohtani stories in Japan.

The Japanese say they revere Ohtani’s humility and ability to focus just on baseball, as much as his talent and good looks. The fact that he looks like a potential two-way superstar in Major League Baseball doesn’t hurt.

“He’s so sincere,” said Hidemi Eguchi, a 19-year-old from Japan who is studying this year at USC.

“I can tell his character from his comments.”

She was at Angel Stadium Sunday with two Japanese friends from LA; they took Uber to get to the game, a ride that cost about $60.

“I’m so happy that he came to play baseball so close to where I live,” Eguchi said.

“My big sister (in Japan) got so jealous.”

Tomoki Kameyama, who lives in Detroit with his wife and three children, was spending a week vacation in Southern California, in part to see baseball.

They had tickets for a Dodgers game, but when they found out Ohtani would be making his pitching debut in Oakland, on April 1, they scratched that plan and drove six hours from Los Angeles to the Bay Area for the Angels game. Two days later, they were in Anaheim to watch Ohtani play his first home game as designated hitter. That night, Ohtani, in keeping with his Babe Ruth week, swatted his first home run.

“He’s at top level in both, pitching and hitting,” Kameyama, 41, said in Japanese.

Kazuto Soejima turned up for the Sunday game as part of a week long vacation in Southern California. He was here partly for top-flight golf (multiple rounds at Torrey Pines; watching the Masters on TV), and partly for Ohtani.

When Soejima and friends found out Ohtani would pitch Sunday, they quickly bought tickets. They even gave up watching the last round of the Masters, and drove more than an hour to Anaheim, for some seats on the third base line.

“This is once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Soejima said.

Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says there are more than 70,000 Japanese natives living in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. And, so far, most of the Japanese fans who’ve caught an Ohtani game in Anaheim seem to be from that world.

But as summer approaches, and Japanese schools take a break, Japanese families will take long vacations and Angel Stadium figures to get a surge of business. Japanese travel agencies have already begun selling packaged tours to watch Angels games.

The first wave is expected during Golden Week, from the end of April to early May, when a number of Japanese holidays are celebrated. That week, the Angels are slated to play, among others, the Yankees.

Riko Ieda, who works for a Japanese company in Irvine, sat in the stands Sunday with three Japanese co-workers. As Ohtani dominated, the 27-year-old said she identifies with her countryman.

“It had been my dream to come to the U.S. and work here since high school,” Ieda said in Japanese.

Ohtani, of course, famously had the same dream.

“I was able to achieve that… and come here three months ago, around the same time as Ohtani.”

Seeing him succeed, she added, “motivates me to work harder.”