IRVINE : Panel Allows Extra Apartments at Site

The Planning Commission voted grudgingly this week to allow a developer to build more apartments than originally approved in the Park Place office complex.

The Trammell Crow Co. had asked to build an extra 360 units in its proposed 1,442-unit apartment towers because the company had satisfied state affordable-housing requirements. Under state law, cities must allow developers to build 25% more units--or provide similar financial rewards--if affordable-housing requirements are met.

The Planning Commission approved the request 3-2 Thursday night after several commissioners criticized the state law. It was the first time an Irvine developer had taken advantage of the “density bonus” law.

The Park Place office center is in the Irvine Business Complex, an area which city planners have said needs substantial street improvements to handle traffic expected in the future.

Trammell Crow received permission in 1989 to add the 1,442 units to Park Place, which it proposes to build in three residential towers. The company agreed in 1989 to make 15% of the units affordable to lower-income families, satisfying the state “density bonus” provision.

Even with the legal requirements, the city should turn down the request, Planning Commissioner Lowell S. Johnson said. Traffic created by the project already is expected to make the streets in the area congested, he said, and adding more units would only make the problem worse.

“We’ve got to stop sometime, somewhere,” Johnson said. “ . . . It’s just poor planning and we can’t justify this.”

Rather than allow the extra units, the city should explore providing other financial rewards, he said. The city estimated the value of the extra 360 units at $8.4 million.

Planning Commission Chairman Richard Salter joined Johnson in opposing the extra units.

The proposed high-rise Park Place residential towers are near John Wayne Airport flight paths, within 1,000 feet of 19 area businesses using hazardous chemicals, in an area destined for severe traffic problems, and has other environmental difficulties, Salter said.

“It doesn’t make good planning sense to me” to allow even more homes to be built in the area, he said.

Salter said the project also “would only incur more wrath of the residents” of Irvine who are being asked to conserve water because of the drought and yet see the city approving more housing that increase its population.

Commissioner Scott Peotter, who voted in favor of the extra units, said he does not like granting the density bonus. But the city has an obligation to the landowner to follow the law and past commitments from city officials who had told Trammell Crow it could apply for the extra units, Peotter said.

“I look at this as the city sticking up for property rights, which are sorely lacking in Southern California,” Peotter said.