Irvine Co. Makes Offer to Underwrite Bonds for Day-Care Centers in Irvine

In a bid to remove the specter of developer fees in Irvine where it is the largest landowner, the Irvine Co. has offered to underwrite $5.5 million in construction bonds for day-care centers within the city.

The company--which last year contributed $250,000 to help start the Irvine Community Child Care Agency--hopes the plan will counter the City Council’s consideration of levying fees on future development to finance day-care facilities, said Gary Hunt, an Irvine Co. senior vice president and company chairman Donald L. Bren’s chief aide.

Hunt made the offer at a council meeting earlier this week in conjunction with the release of a city staff report that says there will be as many as 15,000 children in need of child care within the city by 1992.

The report said Irvine, with its high percentage of two-worker families, already has a shortage of more than 1,200 day-care spaces for children under the age of 2 and that by next year there will be as many as 6,800 elementary school children in the city in need of after-school day care.

Hunt said Irvine Co. officials recognize the growing need and have been involved with the city for several years in assessing means of satisfying it.

But as a corporation, he said, the company is “not in the day-care business, nor are we particularly interested in getting in the day-care business.”

As envisioned by the Irvine Co., the city would use the $5.5 million in proceeds from the bond offering to build child-care facilities and then hire professionals to actually operate the centers. The cost of running the centers and retiring the debt would be offset by tuition fees.

By levying fees on future development--most of which will be done by the Irvine Co.--the city would be charging future residents for services that will benefit current residents, Hunt said.

Oppose Fees

“We are opposed to fees” for that reason and because fees on future development won’t pay for the facilities that must be constructed now, he said.

“But the company has determined there is a need” for child care, Hunt said. The child-care agency--operated jointly by the city and the city school district--could issue the bond immediately to begin financing many of the estimated 40 day-care centers that will be needed in the next five years, he said.

Acknowledging that the $5.5 million would not cover the entire cost of the program being considered by the city, Hunt said there are “other alternatives including general obligation bonds.”

Such bonds, issued by the city and backed by future tax revenues, would have to be approved by voters in the city.

But city-sponsored child care, Hunt said, “is a public service, and if the community wants this service, people should be willing to tax themselves to provide it.”