Frank and Joan Randall Preserve

As Highway 1 crosses the Santa Ana River into the city of Newport Beach, it passes an unexpected open space. Buildings and roads briefly give way to a stretch of scrubby dunes lined with a chain-link fence. Beyond, sandstone outcroppings are studded with massive prickly pear cacti, and leafy trees sprout in shady arroyos. Here and there, rusty oil derricks dot the horizon. This is the Frank and Joan Randall Preserve, formerly known as Banning Ranch. Until recently, it was the largest stretch of private open space on the whole coast of Southern California—387.6 undeveloped acres between Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. Recognizing the land’s incredible potential, Trust for Public Land and our partners teamed up to seek its permanent protection.

Indigenous Tongva and Acjachemen people who live in the region today know the Randall Preserve as the site of a village called Genga. Archaeologists have documented cultural sites here dating back at least 3,000 years, including three that the California State Native American Heritage Commission has listed as sacred. In the coming years, a formal name will be selected to reflect the cultural significance and ancestral homelands of the local California Native American tribes, as well as “The Frank and Joan Randall Preserve.” In the early 1940s, mineral companies dug the first oil wells on the property and, in the following decades, continued to build over 450 wells on the land. Meanwhile, the surrounding communities of Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, and Huntington Beach grew from sandy coastal outposts to busy, vibrant cities—a building boom that stops at the edge of the Randall Preserve.

In November 2022, TPL crossed the finish line and secured the necessary funding to create this future public park. This is incredible news for the 8.4 million residents within an hour’s drive of the land, half of whom live in low-income communities, where parks are too few. An extraordinarily diverse mix of coastal wetland, riparian woodland, coastal bluff sage scrub, vernal pools, and rare species thrive within the Randall Preserve’s boundaries. Protecting this property from development is a critical milestone for California’s ambitious climate goals, the 30×30 initiative that calls for the protection of 30 percent of the state’s land and coastal waters by the year 2030.

The next step in this property’s journey is to remove hundreds of oil wells, clean up decades of pollution, and restore its natural ecosystems. After that? We’ll invite the public to think about what the Frank and Joan Randall Preserve can be—and work alongside them to make those dreams a reality. From campgrounds to trails to playgrounds, and with intention to honor the Tongva and Acjachemen people whose ancestral territory includes this land, the future is up to people like you.