IRVINE : Tract OKd Without Low-Income Units

The City Council has approved a 3,700-home development near the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station without requiring that the Irvine Co. include any housing for low-income residents in the project.

Critics protested after Tuesday night’s five-hour public hearing that the council’s action ignores housing goals approved last year by the former City Council. Those housing goals call for 12 1/2% of housing in Irvine to be set aside for families earning half or less of the county’s median income and another 12 1/2% for other low-income families.

The council approved the Westpark II development by a 3-1 vote, with Councilwoman Paula Werner dissenting.

“Did we get enough out of (the Irvine Co.) in what we approved tonight?” Werner said after the meeting. “No, I don’t believe so.”

The plan approved by the council requires the Irvine Co. to ensure that at least 10% of the units built in Westpark II are affordable to families earning up to half the county’s median income, or $24,550 for a family of four. But the requirement takes effect only if the company receives government subsidies to build the units.

The plan, though, does require the company to build housing units, convert existing housing in the city or pay fees aimed at providing 385 units for families earning less than 80% of the county’s median, or about $39,280 for a family of four.

But since the plan gives the Irvine Co. options around actually building the low-income units, the company likely will build none, said Mary Ann Gaido, who was on the Planning Commission when it drafted the housing goals.

“This is a major change for this city,” Gaido said. “It’s a major financial giveaway to the Irvine Co.”

Recent projects approved by the former City Council majority mandated that at least 10% of the units built be affordable to families earning half the county’s median without guarantees of government subsidies.

Approval of Westpark II, which will be located on 350 acres west of Culver Drive between Barranca Parkway and Irvine Center Drive, caps three public hearings before the City Council and several previous hearings before the Planning Commission. The approval requires a routine second council vote later this month.

Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan and the other council members voting for the project said they are not turning away from the city’s goal of providing affordable housing.

Since the city’s housing plan has a goal that 25% of housing should be affordable to various income groups, she said, mandating builders to follow that could effectively stop new houses, including affordable housing, from being built.

“Do you want do-able housing, or do you want to make the rules so onerous that you can’t build any houses at all?” Sheridan said. “That just exacerbates the (housing) problem.”

Councilman William A. (Art) Bloomer said he is optimistic that financial subsidies will be available to allow the Irvine Co. to build the affordable units and meet the city’s low-income housing goal.

“A lot of people would have liked to see this (requirement) laid entirely on the Irvine Co.’s back,” Bloomer said. “And I think if we had done this, the Irvine Co. would have pulled back on this project.”

Even without mandatory requirements for affordable housing, the Irvine Co. is committed to building affordable units in the new Westpark II and will work with the city to find the financing, said Michael Le Blanc, vice president-entitlement for Irvine Community Builders, the Irvine Co.’s residential building wing.

If tract maps for Westpark II are approved on schedule, homes could start going up in just over a year, Le Blanc said. Tuesday’s plan requires the company to provide five neighborhood parks and set aside land for two schools and two child-care centers.