Orange County Perspective : A Bad Time to Change Housing Goals : Affordable Unit Concept Could Suffer Under New Action by Irvine City Council
The 3,700-unit Westpark II housing development that the Irvine Co. wants to build in Irvine is a huge project, certain to have a major impact on a city that has already grown by leaps and bounds and is increasingly congested.
The city’s affordable housing goals provide one useful tool to monitor this development, which will spring up smack in the middle of its busiest thoroughfares. But in its enthusiasm for the project, the City Council has opened the door for the developer to build market-rate instead of low-income housing. Affordable housing may get put on hold, or not be represented in the new housing stock.
Last year, under the Administration of former Mayor Larry Agran, the council approved a housing policy that called for 12 1/2% of housing to be set aside for families earning less than half of the county’s median income, or less, and another 12 1/2% for other low-income families. But last month, the council in effect transformed the policy when it approved the new development by a 3-1 margin. It said at least 10% of the units should be affordable to families earning up to half the county’s median income, or $24,550 for a family of four, only if the project received subsidies.
Planning Commission Chairman Richard Salter, writing in the Irvine Co.’s weekly newspaper this week, made a virtue of such financing as an affordable housing strategy--which it would be, if available. But to get it will be another question. Meanwhile, council members voting for the project said that they were not retreating from the goal of affordable housing. But it’s clear where sympathies reside; Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan argued that requiring builders to follow a goal of 25% would effectively stop new construction of houses.
These may be hard times for developers, but if they can’t build affordable housing in a giant project, when can they ever? What good are affordable housing goals if the city provides loopholes when major new construction comes on line? The city did require other options, such as converting existing housing or paying fees, but it remains to be seen how that all will play out. The Irvine Co. affirms its commitment to build affordable units. But the fact remains that the council picked the worst time--when a proposal for colossal new development was before it--to decide that its own goals were unrealistic and change them.
If the council dislikes the housing goals it has inherited, it should engage in a full public debate before signing off on something that will have so much impact on Irvine.
