IRVINE : 830-Home Plan Gets Draft Approval

The City Council gave preliminary approval this week to an Irvine Co. plan to build up to 830 more homes in Westpark Village in an area originally set aside for offices.

The council approved the plan despite protests from a few residents that the new homes near the southwest corner of Harvard Avenue and Main Street would create more traffic problems. The council is expected to grant routine final approval to the plan in January.

The plan, approved late Tuesday night, also would allow the company to move ahead with its proposed affordable-housing venture with a nonprofit housing corporation. The Irvine Co.’s plan is to satisfy some of the city’s affordable-housing requirements by building a 384-unit apartment complex in the north end of Westpark, almost directly across the street from City Hall, with up to 153 of the units having rents of about $735 a month or less for a family of four.

Council member Paula Werner said she approved the project, even though she favors slow growth, because Irvine needs more homes and she likes the plan for affordable housing.

Also, Werner said, the total number of homes falls below the 5,660 maximum approved by the City Council in 1985.

David Stedman, a Westpark resident who lives across from where the new houses would go, said he would have preferred to see offices built there because they would have brought more traffic only during the week, but homes will bring heavier traffic even on the weekends.

When residents bought their homes in Westpark, the plan called for offices, and that’s what they thought they were going to get on that corner, he said.

“If you’re going to have an Irvine planned community, I’d like to see you stick to the plan,” Stedman said.

Traffic studies conducted for the proposed changes to Westpark show no major difference between having the area built with offices or with homes, said Pam Davis, a senior planner in the city’s Community Development Department.