Just off Dover Drive, a short gully at 1601 E. 16th St. holds towering redwoods over dense, low-hanging ferns. That shaded cut is the Environmental Nature Center, and since the 1970s it has served Southern California children through field trips, summer camps and a nature preschool where kids spend up to 90% of their day outdoors. Many households in Dover Shores know it as the place a child went on a school trip, and they haven't been back since.
The address will come up often this month, because the grove's public calendar and a City Council vote about the lot next door both land in the same few weeks. To use the first and follow the second, start with how the gate works.
Ten Public Hours a Week
The ENC's posted public hours are Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., which comes to ten hours a week. On weekdays, the 2 to 5 p.m. window is for members only. Other weekday visits are limited to people registered for a scheduled program, such as a school field trip or a class.
The campus closes on Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year's Day. This year, every one of those dates falls on a weekday. Thanksgiving is Thursday, Nov. 26, Christmas Eve and Christmas are a Thursday and Friday, and New Year's Day is a Friday. So the holiday closures this season don't cost a single public weekend. Every Saturday and Sunday from now through the end of December keeps its 10-to-3 window.
Because the public window is so narrow, most of what the ENC offers the general public happens on those weekend mornings.
The Season's Dates, in Order
Here is the November and December calendar at the 16th Street campus, with the Council hearing placed where it falls.
| Date | What | Where and when |
|---|---|---|
| Nov. 4 | Winter camp registration opened for nonmembers | Opened at noon; member registration opened Oct. 27 |
| Tuesday, Nov. 17 | City Council hears the appeal on Westcliff at Dover | Council Chambers, 100 Civic Center Drive, 4 p.m. |
| Sunday, Nov. 22 | Reading in the Redwoods | ENC Newport Beach, 10 to 11:30 a.m. |
| Sunday, Dec. 6 | Artisan Marketplace | 1601 E. 16th St., 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. |
| Dec. 21–23 and Dec. 28–31 | Winter camps | 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., limited after-camp care to 3 p.m. |
Reading in the Redwoods pairs a reading of Gather Grateful by Megan Litwin with outdoor activities. Ticket prices differ for members and nonmembers, so check the event page before you go.
The Artisan Marketplace is the biggest public day of the season. It brings more than 50 local artisans and live music to the 16th Street campus, and the $2 entry fee goes to the center's environmental education programs. It's also an easy way to see the grounds on a weekend when holiday shopping is already on the list.
The winter camps run two programs at the Newport Beach site. Little Naturalist Camp is for 4-year-olds, and Nature Adventure Camp is for ages 5 to 9. There's no camp on Dec. 24, Dec. 25 or Jan. 1. Nonmember registration opened at noon on Wednesday, Nov. 4.
The ENC's November calendar also lists recurring Little Naturalist, Mini Naturalist and bilingual classes for young children. Times and details are on the center's events calendar.
One date on that list isn't on the campus at all. It falls on a Tuesday afternoon, when the grove is open only to members.
The Lot Next Door
On June 18, the Newport Beach Planning Commission voted 4–2 to approve Westcliff at Dover, a residential project at 1501 E. 16th St., directly next to the Environmental Nature Center and its Nature Preschool. As the Daily Pilot reported, the plan calls for 30 townhomes of 2,088 to 2,401 square feet, spread across five buildings that each reach about 44 feet. A vacant medical building stands on the site now.
The decision was appealed. The full City Council will hear the appeal on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 4 p.m. in the Council Chambers at 100 Civic Center Drive.
The Daily Pilot's coverage of the June hearing laid out both sides. Opponents, who had been fighting the project for more than a year, said residents of the townhomes would have a direct line of sight into the center. They also said three-story buildings would tower over the greenspace and undercut the sense of sanctuary in the pocket forest. ENC President and CEO Bo Glover told commissioners:
"This project is literally taking away the blue sky."
The same report noted that most of the nearly 30 people who spoke at that meeting asked commissioners to stop the project. A smaller group of speakers supported it. They said it would add homes in one of the most expensive rental markets in the country and would look better than the vacant medical building now on the site.
Commissioners pointed to the state housing mandate. Under the current Regional Housing Needs Assessment cycle, Newport Beach must zone for an additional 4,845 housing units by 2029. Commissioners also described their role as interpreting the city's zoning code rather than ruling on whether a project is good or bad.
On its own Take Action page, the ENC says it believes significant changes are needed to protect the natural setting, privacy, open sky, habitat and sense of place on its campus. The Council meeting is public, and the agenda will be posted by the city ahead of the session.
For a neighbor, the grove's calendar and the hearing are about the same thing. What makes the ENC worth visiting on a Sunday morning is the feeling of a closed-in redwood gully with sky overhead. The appeal is about what rises along one edge of that gully. Whatever the Council decides, the Nov. 22 reading and the Dec. 6 marketplace take place in the setting as it stands now.
A Weekday Way In
Ten public hours a week is the default, but the ENC offers two other ways in.
The first is the native plant nursery. The ENC sells locally native plants year-round. Stock changes, so the center suggests checking inventory and calling before you come. For a Dover Shores garden planted along the bluff above the Back Bay, buying here keeps the purchase local and the plants regional.
The second is membership, which opens weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. For a household that lives a few minutes from 16th Street, that turns a grove open only on weekends into an after-school stop on weekdays.
The ENC also runs a second site, Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary, in Modjeska Canyon. It has its own fall bird walks and story hours, but it's a drive inland from the Back Bay.
The Rest of the Back Bay Calendar
The 16th Street grove is the inland end of a fall on the water that we wrote about in our Back Bay playbook for Dover Shores. Two nearby dates fit around the ENC's weekends. OC Parks is holding a free Nature Scavenger Hunt near the Muth Interpretive Center at the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve on Saturday, Nov. 7, with start times between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Across the bay, Newport Dunes opens its Fire & Lights Festival on Nov. 27, with more than 50 floating holiday displays through Jan. 3.
Here's the order of the season. Nov. 7 at the Muth Center, Nov. 17 at City Hall, Nov. 22 and Dec. 6 under the redwoods, then the floating lights across the bay through the holidays.
Living a few minutes from a place like the Environmental Nature Center is part of what a Dover Shores address means, and so is what gets built along its edges. If you want to talk through how open space, nearby projects and the Back Bay figure into your plans, the Carter Kaufman Team is here to help. Book an appointment.
