IRVINE : Irvine Co. Questions Legality of Balloting

With a referendum threatening the Irvine Co.’s planned 3,800-home Westpark II project, company officials said Wednesday that they believe it would be illegal to place the matter before voters.

The City Council’s approval of the project was challenged by the slow-growth group Irvine Tomorrow, which collected enough signatures to force the council to either overturn it or call a special election. The ballot question would ask voters whether the zoning on the property should be changed from residential back to open space, as it was before the council approved Westpark II in December.

In a letter addressed to the City Council, the developer outlined recent court cases that imply the referendum could be overturned by a lawsuit. The letter also warns the city that if the Westpark II project is overturned by voters, other agreements between the company and the city could be in jeopardy.

Christopher B. Mears, chairman of Irvine Tomorrow, said the letter amounted to “thinly veiled threats for lawsuits. . . . To threaten the city and the City Council with a lawsuit is extremely offensive. It’s undemocratic in the extreme. It’s a kind of bully-boy tactic that, frankly, I thought the Irvine Co. was above resorting to.”

Irvine Co. officials believe that overturning Westpark II, planned for an agricultural field between Culver Drive and the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station, would threaten the city-company open space agreement approved by voters in 1988. The open space agreement calls for the company to donate land to the city in exchange for rights to build on other properties.

The referendum could also jeopardize a development agreement for a commercial center that specifies that the city would not interfere with the development of nearby residential areas that would bring customers to the center, the letter said. In the other agreement, the Irvine Co. agreed to pay up to about $1.4 million a year to the city if sales taxes from the center were low in exchange for the right to build the center. The company has paid $4.7 million to the city so far while waiting to build the center.

“We want the council to know, from our perspective, that this referendum does or potentially impacts all the things we listed,” said Irvine Co. spokesman Larry Thomas.

The referendum might prevent the city from upholding its end of both of those agreements, Thomas said.

The Irvine Co.’s letter defends the Westpark II project, saying it complies with Irvine’s blueprint for growth and meets or exceeds development requirements. A lawsuit settled in Norco in 1985 ruled that a referendum could not challenge a project that complies with the city’s growth plan.

In the Norco case, a court ruled that building guidelines written in the city’s general building plan superseded a referendum challenging a plan approved by the City Council, Irvine City Atty. John L. Fellows III said. The Norco City Council refused to place the referendum on the ballot, saying it would be illegal, and an appeals court upheld that decision.

The Irvine Co. has a valid question concerning the legality of the referendum, Fellows said Wednesday, adding that he is now researching the matter. Although the agreements with the Irvine Co. spell out the city’s role, he said it is unclear whether the city is obligated to approve the Westpark II by any certain date to comply with its end of the bargain.