LOCAL ELECTIONS / IRVINE COUNCIL : ‘Urban’ War Raging Over Mayor’s Plan for New Paris

A radical proposal to turn the fast-growing Irvine Business Complex into an urban center with a boulevard rivaling Paris’ Champs Elysees has emerged as a key issue in a hotly contested election that could profoundly shape the city’s development.

Builders with a stake in the huge complex are making campaign contributions and lining up behind candidates whose victories or defeats might determine whether Irvine will get a vital downtown as dense as those of many major cities.

Incumbent Mayor Larry Agran says development of the business complex should be slowed and carefully redesigned to include a high-density mix of residential, retail and commercial projects linked to other parts of the city by a monorail. His position is supported by City Council candidate Mary Ann Gaido, while incumbent Councilman Cameron Cosgrove says he has taken a wait-and-see attitude.

The slate of challengers in Tuesday’s election--Councilwoman Sally Anne Sheridan, who is running for mayor, and Art Bloomer and Barry Hammond, who are running for the council, question Agran’s so-called “Urban Village” concept. Instead, they want immediate approval of three Irvine Co. residential developments and have placed an emphasis on new roads to solve traffic woes in the Irvine Business Complex next to John Wayne Airport.

“We need to go back and re-zone the whole thing, instead of trying to zone some theoretical idea of what you might dream for,” Sheridan said. “It’s a big issue, and if I don’t get elected, Larry (Agran) goes on with 28,000 homes and the grand dream.”

“I resent the mischaracterization by council member Sheridan and others that somehow the council is trying to steer a result in IBC,” Agran said. “Quite the contrary. We are the ones who put the brakes on the disastrous policies of the past and are now trying to look for a suitable alternative for the future.”

The 2,500-acre Irvine Business Complex, where mirrored high-rises dwarf the palm trees along the streets, has been under a building moratorium since December to give the city time to revise plans that have outgrown their usefulness. In the past decade, complicated land-use laws and a confusing method of assigning points to determine the size of a development result

ed in the council’s approving 10 million more square feet of construction than the business complex’s plans called for.

As a possible way out of the situation, city officials have proposed an ambitious plan for a business-residential district they hope will drastically reduce commuter congestion by 43% and ward off what Agran said could be “an unmitigated disaster.”

Although still on the drawing board, the “Urban Village” concept calls for a drastic redesign of the existing business complex with development far more dense and urban than any other area of Irvine.

A maximum of 28,000 apartments and condominiums is proposed--three times the number of homes in Woodbridge Village, Irvine’s largest residential area. They would replace existing structures on McGaw Avenue and Dupont Drive. Surrounding the homes could be upwards of 63 million square feet of offices, restaurants, hotels and stores. The main boulevard--the proposed Champs Elysees--would be Von Karman Avenue.

But under the moratorium, the Agran-led City Council reduced total residential units from 112,000 to no more than 3,571 and drafted six alternatives for varying numbers of homes up to 28,000. The council also set a limit of 48.25 million square feet of development--down from a planned 57 million square feet.

“The important point to make is that this is the council that put a moratorium on development in the IBC,” Agran said. “This is the council that brought things under control. And it was a developer-dominated council in the past that let things get entirely out of control.”

Although Agran supports the “Urban Village” concept, he said he will approve no further development in the complex until pending studies show that it is feasible and benefits the public.

Despite Agran’s pledge to be cautious, Sheridan charges that his stance against rampant development appears hypocritical when he supports building up to 28,000 residential units in the complex, which would add 100,000 residents.

“That is equal to three Woodbridges,” said Sheridan, referring to the city’s largest planned community. “The mayor says he has pushed back developers, and that he has been very restrictive on developers. All of this stuff about not working with developers is a lot of bunk. . . . It’s the great inconsistency of Larry Agran.”

Sheridan does not want to see the “Urban Village” concept built to its fullest extent. She said she supports some of its ideas, such as a blend of residential, office and retail uses, but warns that economic conditions also will affect the future of such a plan.

The priority of the Sheridan slate is approval of three planned Irvine Co. villages--Northwood 5 with 2,800 units; Village 12 with 4,000 units; and another 4,000 units for Village 38.

Sheridan is the most vocal skeptic on whether mass transit, such as the proposed five-mile monorail loop around the Irvine Business Complex, justifies the “Urban Village” plan. Sheridan says the city should continue to tap into a developer-funded account of about $60 million for road widening in the complex.

Agran and his supporters oppose the Irvine Co. projects, which the mayor described as ill-conceived and a threat that will devastate surrounding residential areas with more congestion.

“We told them what they were proposing was excessive and ill-advised,” Agran said. “Now, they’re hoping to get a rubber-stamp City Council so they can bring it back to the council after June.”

But Sheridan said she is independent of the Irvine Co., which also has questioned the “Urban Village” plan--an idea that could compete with the company’s Irvine Spectrum commercial center. Company officials say the corporation neither has endorsed candidates nor made political contributions under its name.