ORANGE : Officials Visit Irvine Co.’s ‘West Bowl’ Site

City leaders, urban planners and representatives of the Irvine Co. stood on a gentle slope east of the city Wednesday and gazed at the future.

The occasion was a study session and tour of part of the 7,100 acres designated in the East Orange Specific Plan, a proposed amendment to the city’s general plan that would increase the city’s population by 40% over the next 20 years. City Council and Planning Commission members boarded two white vans to tour the 1,490-acre “West Bowl,” the western-most parcel of the Irvine Co. project and the first of four phases scheduled for development.

The West Bowl is considered to be the most intense phase of the project, partly because it includes the Eastern Transportation Corridor, a six- to eight-lane road traversing 13 miles through the heart of the area, said Vernon Jones, administrator of the city’s Community Planning Division.The road will join the Riverside Freeway to the north and the Laguna Highway to the south, with interchanges at Handy Street, Chapman Avenue and Santiago Canyon Road.

The West Bowl will also include a town center, elementary school, two parks, several commercial and business-industrial areas and open space. Development will be confined to below ridgelines, said Steve Ross, a planner for the Irvine Co.

The City Council approved the environmental impact report for the East Orange project last December. Opponents of the plan say the massive development will cause traffic congestion and other problems.

The plan is scheduled for adoption by the council in late 1991, with grading and construction to begin in 1994, planners said.