Newport Beach studies village near JWA

Newport Beach is formally studying how 360 acres next to John Wayne Airport could evolve from an office district into a mixed-use neighborhood with housing. (newportbeachca.gov) The city’s new Airport Area Specific Plan covers land at the northern edge of Newport Beach, beside John Wayne Airport and near Irvine and Costa Mesa. City planners say the area is now primarily a business hub with offices, hotels, limited commercial uses and only a small amount of housing. (newportbeachca.gov) Newport Beach says the plan will set a long-term framework for land use, housing, transportation, open space, infrastructure and urban design. The city has opened a survey and community map now, with a formal visioning process scheduled for summer 2026 and a public pop-up set for May 2 at the Newport Harbor Farmers’ Market. (newportbeachca.gov) This is not a brand-new idea in city planning documents. Newport Beach’s General Plan already includes an “Airport Area Residential Villages Illustrative Concept Diagram,” showing the airport district as a place where housing could be organized into walkable village-style clusters. (newportbeachca.gov 1) (newportbeachca.gov 2) The city’s housing obligations are part of the pressure here. Newport Beach’s certified 2021-2029 Housing Element says the city must plan for 4,845 new homes, and the council adopted implementation amendments on July 23, 2024 to update land-use rules and zoning. (newportbeachca.gov) The airport corridor already has one approved example of that shift. Newport Airport Village, a planned community text adopted in 2020, sets rules for a mixed-use residential area on part of the Campus Tract rather than keeping the site entirely in older office and industrial patterns. (newportbeachca.gov) Integris Real Estate Investments said this week that it bought 25 acres in the airport area in 2010, won unanimous city approvals in 2013, and holds entitlements for a master development with 1,244 housing units, 11,500 square feet of retail and two 1-acre parks. (integrisinvestments.com) Integris also said Phase 1 of that project, One Uptown Newport, delivered 458 apartments in December 2019 through a joint venture with the Picerne Group. The firm framed the airport submarket as one of Orange County’s key infill development zones because of freeway access, nearby jobs and a growing amenity base. (integrisinvestments.com) Any buildout near the airport still runs into aviation rules and neighborhood politics. Newport Beach notes that John Wayne Airport operations are governed in part by a 1985 settlement agreement, and the city’s housing implementation record shows it overrode an Orange County Airport Land Use Commission inconsistency finding in 2024. (newportbeachca.gov 1) (newportbeachca.gov 2) For now, the news is that Newport Beach has moved the airport-area village concept out of old diagrams and into a live planning process with public outreach, dates and a defined 360-acre study area. (newportbeachca.gov)