No Immediate Effect Seen From Irvine’s Altered Freeway Stand

An Irvine City Council decision to let voters decide whether the community will participate in a controversial program to finance new freeways will not have an immediate effect on the planned arteries, officials said Wednesday.

But other conditions laid down by the council for participation in the program--including changes in route alignments, highway design and limits on future development--angered county officials Wednesday and caused one to threaten political retaliation.

Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who is a member of the state Transportation Commission, threatened to ask agencies such as the University of California Board of Regents to block expansion of UC Irvine and other facilities in the city “for lack of an adequate infrastructure” (transportation system) to handle the increased traffic that such expansion would bring.

And Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission, said Irvine was probably making too many demands about freeway design and route alignment to make the city’s participation in the freeway-financing program politically practical.

Council Sets Conditions

He urged the city to join the agencies involved in settling the issues now instead of “throwing rocks” from outside.

During its Tuesday night session, the council voted 3 to 2 to participate in the freeway-financing program only if Irvine voters approve and only if the other program participants agree to Irvine’s numerous conditions.

At issue is Irvine’s membership in two joint powers authorities (JPAs) set up to administer a program that generates money for freeway construction by collecting fees from developers. The JPA membership includes representatives of 10 cities that would be affected by the freeways, plus members of the Board of Supervisors and the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County.

Irvine has been expected to provide about a fourth of the developer fees in the $866-million freeway-financing program. The planned freeways are known as the San Joaquin Hills, Eastern and Foothill transportation corridors.

While opposition to new freeways is not new, the way Irvine and Orange County are trying to address the issue and relieve choked transportation arteries represents a bold experiment in urban decision making, say city and county planners.

Fee Program a First

On one hand, Orange County is the first in the state to impose developer fees in an attempt to bypass traditional financial roadblocks to new freeway construction. At the same time, joint powers authorities have been created to decide how to spend the millions--and potentially billions--of dollars collected by the JPAs, which are themselves experiments in democracy.

And Irvine officials are among the first in the county to insist that future development be restricted to what can be handled by existing or already approved transportation systems: this even though county officials believe that fast-growing Irvine has itself contributed to the need for freeways by importing thousands of non-resident workers daily to its business and industrial complexes.

One of the conditions for Irvine’s participation in the freeway-financing program, as laid down by the council Tuesday night, would require the JPAs to “allow future development only when there is sufficient capacity in the transportation system.”

“The JPAs don’t even have any authority over land-use decisions,” complained Nestande, who is a member of the authority.

Office-Space Approval Cited

“Irvine is a helluva one to talk--if we allowed in south Orange County the development densities that Irvine has allowed, we would need to build two additional freeways parallel to the new freeways we already have planned now. If this is their stance, then they are cutting themselves off because there would be little point to their participation.”

Nestande also said the Irvine council should not have approved plans recently for 32 million square feet of new office and industrial space if it is not going to help finance the roads and freeways needed to move the traffic that accompanies such development.

City officials said Wednesday that Nestande was overreacting and added that they are simply trying to protect the city’s interests.

Contention arose earlier when the city joined the developer-fee program based on a council decision instead of a citywide vote. That move sparked a lawsuit from the Committee of 7000, a citizens group opposed to the fee program and new freeways.

The committee’s argument, seeking a citywide vote on Irvine’s participation in the freeway program, was rejected in an appellate court ruling that the freeway fee program was “obviously of statewide concern” and that voters did not have the authority to decide the question. Under state law, the court ruled, such decisions are specifically left to county supervisors and city councils.

Earlier Position Reversed

However, the state Supreme Court stayed that ruling and is expected to hold a hearing on the merits of the lawsuit sometime in the fall. Irvine has been a non-voting member of the joint powers authorities pending the Supreme Court decision.

Meanwhile, the Irvine City Council on Tuesday reversed its earlier position and came out in favor of a citizens’ vote on the freeway-financing issue. The switch was endorsed by a new “slow growth” majority on the council, led by Mayor Larry Agran, newly elected Councilman Ed Dornan and Councilman Ray Catalano.

But the council’s action seeking a citywide vote will not immediately affect planning for the new freeways because it focuses not on the freeways’ merits but on the narrow legal question of whether the Committee of 7000 has a right to put the city’s participation in the fee program on the ballot.

If the state Supreme Court eventually sides with the Committee of 7000, there will be a binding referendum on the city’s participation in the freeway-financing program, Catalano said. But if the court rules against the committee, Catalano explained, then the council’s decision Tuesday night means that he and his colleagues will schedule a citywide “advisory” vote.

Agran said Wednesday that “the issue is of sufficient importance to schedule a special election” immediately after the Supreme Court ruling in the dispute.

Yet even if Irvine residents ultimately vote against participation in the freeway-financing program, county officials said, the freeways could probably still be built, but without Irvine having much say about highway placement or design.

Irvine has already contracted to collect developer fees for the freeways for four years, and after that other revenues may be found, they explained.

Agran, however, strongly disagrees. He said Wednesday that previous attempts by county officials to gain voter approval of a 1% sales tax for transportation projects and the urgency with which they have “pushed” the developer fee program on participating cities proves that it will be very difficult to proceed without Irvine’s cooperation.

Meanwhile, Catalano cautioned freeway supporters not to misinterpret Tuesday night’s council decision favoring a citywide vote as a sign that the new council majority intends to pull out of the two regional joint powers authorities set up to administer the fee program.

“I believe that the JPA process is working relatively well, that a lot of progress has been made toward resolving our concerns, especially about the Eastern Corridor, and I would like to see the process continue. We are not pulling out,” he said.

“If at JPA meetings you don’t see Irvine participating, it will be because of somebody else, not us,” Catalano said.

Catalano said he would campaign for citizen approval of the city’s participation in the developer-fee program if the freeway “packages” worked out by the JPAs meet Irvine’s conditions. Agran said he would do the same.

Both council members said a major stumbling block is their desire to limit the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor to an arterial no more than four to six lanes wide, similar to Crown Valley Parkway or University Drive. This would preclude construction of a freeway, something Oftelie and Nestande said is not practical given the level of development Irvine itself envisions for the area, let alone neighboring communities.

Agran said another condition for Irvine’s participation in the JPAs is routing the planned Foothill freeway north of the Lomas Ridge, or elimination of the project entirely. The final route has not been selected.

Ironically, the Board of Supervisors voted this week to defend Irvine’s original decision to join the JPAs without a citywide vote by filing a “friend of the court” argument with the Supreme Court.

After learning Wednesday that the Irvine council no longer supports its original position and now wants a citywide vote, County Counsel Adrian Kuyper said the county will still file the brief because the county originated the developer-fee program and has enough legal standing to become involved in defending it against the Committee of 7000.