Irvine Council Delays Northwood Vote

The City Council Tuesday delayed a vote on a plan for a new community of 2,885 homes and a retail center which would extend the city’s boundaries north toward Santiago Hills.

The plan to build the $300,000-to-$500,000 homes next to the Northwood Community drew protests and praise from residents during a packed, 3 1/2-hour public hearing.

Several residents complained that the project was being rushed through, since final studies of its effects on the environment were finished only hours earlier.

“Staff has been working around the clock on this,” City Manager Paul O. Brady Jr. said in supporting the delay. The council voted to consider the project on July 23.

The Irvine Co., the city’s largest developer and landowner, submitted plans for the new community more than three years ago. The development, called Northwood 5, would add about 7,000 residents to this city of 111,000 and replace 416 acres of orange groves.

Northwood 5 is the second major residential project to come before the City Council in less than a year.

In December, the council approved the Irvine Co.’s request to build the 3,850-home Westpark community on 350 acres in central Irvine. But that approval is now subject to a Nov. 5 referendum vote after Irvine Tomorrow, a slow-growth group, gathered enough signatures to force a special election on the project.

During the hearing Tuesday, members of Irvine Tomorrow urged the council to delay a Northwood 5 decision until after the Westpark II issue is decided. The referendum should be seen as one on future city growth, said Christopher B. Mears, former Irvine Tomorrow chairman and frequent critic of recent council actions.

But council members said that since the Irvine Co. submitted the plan, the company has a right to a decision now.

The plan calls for Northwood 5 to include a mixture of single-family houses, attached townhouses and apartments. A “neighborhood green” in the center of the community would contain a park and space for a school, church, child-care center and recreation building.

The community center would be linked to a retail center at the corner of the extensions of Portola Parkway and Culver Drive by a tree-lined sidewalk to encourage residents to walk to the shops. Irvine Co. officials said the retail center will include a supermarket, drugstore and other shops.

As part of the affordable-housing goals for Northwood 5, the Irvine Co. proposes to sell 144 condominiums in the project to families earning close to the county’s median income.