Irvine Is at Crossroads on Continued Growth : Election: The ballot issues will affect the future of development. It will also test the strength of 2 factions.

Two growth-related ballot measures have pitted the city’s longtime political combatants, the Irvine Co. and supporters of former Mayor Larry Agran, against each other in a major contest that could affect the course of future development here.

On the Nov. 5 city ballot is Measure B, a referendum which asks voters to approve Village 38--also known as Westpark II--an Irvine Co. proposal for 3,850 homes between Woodbridge and the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station. The City Council approved the project in December, but a citizens group, Irvine Tomorrow, gathered enough signatures to force the ballot measure.

Also up for voter consideration is Measure C, proposed by Councilman Bill Vardoulis. It is a non-binding advisory vote on the city’s 3-year-old agreement with the Irvine Co. to set aside open space in exchange for development rights in other areas more suitable for construction.

The eye of the election, however, is Village 38’s 350 acres. Though one of the city’s smallest planned communities, it has plunged Irvine’s political factions and its largest landholder into a broad, sometimes contentious, debate over the city’s open space agreement and how much voters should participate in city planning decisions.

At stake too, is the fate of other Irvine Co. projects, such as Northwood 5, which Irvine Tomorrow says it may target for other referendums, especially if its drive against Village 38 is successful.

“This is a whole new political process in the city of Irvine,” said Keith Greer, president of an Irvine Co. division responsible for residential construction. “It has been implied that this is the way of the future. This could have a serious impact on the company and the city.”

The issue has brought out the city’s rival political groups, from remnants of the Agran camp to the town’s more conservative element led by Michael Shea and Bruce Peotter, who have formed Save Our Open Space, a group in support of Village 38.

Both sides have accused each other of using deceptive campaign tactics and lying about the issues. Shea has filed a complaint with the district attorney’s office and the state Fair Political Practices Commission, alleging that Irvine Tomorrow has failed to file required campaign disclosure reports--a charge that the organization denies.

Irvine Tomorrow, led by a group of former Agran supporters, asserts that the project is simply bad planning and will lead to a host of urban woes despite Irvine Co. assurances that those problems have been addressed.

High among their concerns, members say, are traffic congestion, more demand on limited resources, inadequate schools, exposure of homeowners to electromagnetic fields and noise from the adjacent helicopter base, which is slated to close in 1997.

Irvine Tomorrow also contends that the majority of local voters have grown tired of development in Southern California and no longer want to live in a city with politics and planning decisions dominated by the Irvine Co.

That position is substantially different from a year ago, when the group supported a larger Village 38 proposal, provided that certain conditions were met, including a requirement for low-income housing. Today, however, there is a new anti-growth mood in the city, group members say.

“We have reached critical mass for development,” said attorney Christopher B. Mears, a former chairman of Irvine Tomorrow. “There are problems with large developments. It is something every resident of Orange County is an expert in. The streets are at virtual gridlock . . . Southern California is an area in decline.”

To the Irvine Co. and supporters of Village 38, a vote against the project will create what developers perceive as a potentially disastrous domino effect for builders and other Irvine Co. projects. The referendum, they say, has added great uncertainty in a previously stable and secure atmosphere for managed, carefully planned growth.

“This is not a yes or no vote based on whether there is going to be more traffic,” said Glen Greener, a political consultant hired by the Irvine Co. “It is a vote on whether we are going to have a master-planned versus a politically planned city.”

In addition, Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan says Irvine Tomorrow’s referendum is as much an attack on her as the Irvine Co. and a strong attempt by Agran’s former power base to regain influence. Sheridan defeated Agran for mayor by a wafer-thin margin.

“They just don’t like me,” said Sheridan, who supports Village 38.

The contest has become so important for the Irvine Co. that it has launched a well-financed campaign, far outspending the competition. Its committee, Irvine Yes, has shelled out at least $200,000 to $250,000 on elaborate mailers, door-to-door distribution of literature, cable television ads, T-shirts, and gimmicks such as refrigerator door magnets that say “Irvine Yes.”

Eight-minute television spots, running twice nightly on the local cable channel, feature Ray Watson, a top Irvine Co. executive and chief planner, extolling the virtues of Village 38 and other master-planned communities. The ads are part of the company’s informational campaign, and the approach has bucked the firm’s usual low profile in local elections.

“We have an obligation to defend the project because of our interests and those of the city,” said Larry Thomas, Irvine Co. vice president of corporate communications. “If we just explain what village-level planning is, we believe people will come down on our side in the election.”

Irvine Co. officials and their supporters say Village 38 is needed because there is still a strong market for low- and moderately priced homes. As evidence, they say, Irvine has three jobs for every home in the city, and no major housing projects have been approved in Irvine for years.

Home prices in Village 38, which will be built in phases, are planned to range from the mid-$100,000s to $300,000. The project was passed by the City Council in December, 1990, after 3 1/2 years in the planning process.

According to the Irvine Co. and council members who support the project, most of the concerns aired by Irvine Tomorrow were dealt with before Village 38 was approved by the council.

School sites either have been purchased or set aside by the Irvine Co. and the Irvine Unified School District. The Irvine Co. has vowed to provide sound attenuation to block noise from the Marine helicopter base, even though it is scheduled to be closed long before all of the homes are finished.

Irvine Center Drive will be widened in certain areas, work will proceed on Warner Avenue, and the company has offered to pay fees for public transit as well as provide a shuttle service for the community as part of the Westpark II project.

Irvine Co. executives also have promised to make sure that electromagnetic fields from nearby power lines are no greater in Village 38 than in any other housing project in the city. There is increasing indication, though the evidence is not conclusive, that electromagnetic force might be linked to cancer.

In addition, the Irvine Co. has offered $500,000 to improve Civic Center Park and a $1-million endowment to the school district, plus another $2-million contribution contingent upon approval of its pending housing projects, including Village 38.

But opponents of the development contend that new road work is not enough to handle additional traffic, that houses need to be farther from power lines and that there is no firm guarantee that new schools needed to handle the expected influx of families with children will be built.

State education funds are drying up, said Mary Ann Gaido, a former planning commissioner and City Council member, and there might not be enough money for new school construction. She asserts that the Irvine Co. should dedicate, not sell, land to the district.

Irvine Tomorrow further contends that company promises to provide millions of dollars to the school district are simply an attempt to buy support for Village 38--a charge that the Irvine Co. has vehemently denied.

In their effort against the project, Irvine Tomorrow is using Agran’s time-honored and often successful tactic of beating up on the vast Irvine Co., which drafted the city’s master plan in 1971 and owns about a sixth of Orange County’s land.

“People are tired of living in a company town,” Gaido said. “The Irvine Co. owns the cable TV station, the local newspaper, the leases on land under many of our homes and shopping centers. The citizens are going to vote no on Village 38. Their project erodes the quality of life.”

Irvine Tomorrow has charged the company and its supporters with using scare tactics by claiming that a vote against Village 38 will undermine the city’s open-space agreement. Members say Measure C, the advisory vote on the city’s agreement with the Irvine Co., was put on the ballot simply to confuse the voters.

In 1988, the city entered into a pact with the Irvine Co. to trade development rights in exchange for the company’s assurance to preserve about 9,000 acres of open space. Voters ratified the agreement by a wide margin.

Village 38 is the first project approved by the council under the plan. Greer, of the Irvine Co., said the firm proceeded in good faith to develop the open-space agreement, but now it might not be able to proceed almost four years later.

“There is a serious question of being able to implement the open-space plan in other projects,” he said.

Councilman Vardoulis, who proposed Measure C, said he put it on the ballot to assess how voters feel about the open-space agreement and the city’s General Plan in light of Irvine Tomorrow’s assertion that citizens are dissatisfied with development.

“In my opinion, you run a serious risk of losing the open-space agreement by denying development,” Vardoulis said. “I think it’s real important this open-space issue be highlighted as part of this election. They are linked.”

Mark P. Petracca, an assistant professor at UC Irvine and a member of Irvine Tomorrow, said the fate of the open-space plan is not contingent on the fate of Village 38. Voters have the right to turn down a project, he said, and the open-space plan does not mean that every project has to be approved.

“They are trying to hold people hostage by saying you will lose open space,” Petracca said. “This is just not true. Open space is not threatened.”

City Atty. John L. Fellows III has told the City Council that a vote against Village 38 is not necessarily a nullification of the open-space agreement.

“In the short run, the voters are not required to approve a particular plan,” Fellows said. But, he added, if voters or the council continue to reject development plans, it could give the Irvine Co. an opening to contest whether the city is holding up its end of the open-space bargain.

“We can’t take away forever development rights, but we can tell them to come back with a better plan,” said Councilwoman Paula Werner, who opposes Village 38. “These projects are going to affect our quality of life. We ought to get a lot back from it. . . . We are masters of our master plan. The master plan is not the master of us.”

Times correspondent Tom McQueeney contributed to this report.

* MEASURE A: Backers seek to iron out wrinkle in city election process. A22

Irvine Ballot Measures

Voters in Irvine will decide three city ballot measures in the Nov. 5 election. The measures are:

Measure A:

Would change the way that certain open seats on the City Council are filled. The city’s current election law allows council members with two years left in their terms to run for the elected mayoral seat. Running for mayor does not require them to resign their seat on the council unless they win. If they do win, their resignation creates an unexpected council opening with two years remaining on the term. If Measure A passes, it would allow voters to choose three candidates when two council seats are open and one of the sitting council members is running for mayor. Then, if that council member wins the mayor’s race, the top two finishers would take the open council seats and the candidate who ran third would assume the unexpired council term of the new mayor.

Measure B:

Asks voters whether the Irvine Co. should be allowed to proceed with its 3,850-home Westpark II, or Village 38, project that the City Council approved last December. The company’s building plans meet city requirements and the homes are planned for an area previously set for residential development. But a residents’ group, Irvine Tomorrow, circulated a petition against the project and gathered enough signatures to force the project on the ballot. If Measure B passes, the project may go forward. If it fails, the Irvine Co. would either have to alter its building project and resubmit it for city approval, or wait at least a year before submitting the existing plans for approval.

Measure C:

An advisory measure placed on the ballot by the City Council in reaction to the Measure B referendum. The measure asks voters whether the city’s 3-year-old open-space agreement with the Irvine Co. should be implemented. The agreement calls for the company to donate about 9,000 acres to the public in exchange for development rights to another 9,000 acres in and around Irvine. Four members of the council have said that if voters reject Measure B, then perhaps they no longer would support the open-space plan. Councilwoman Paula Werner, however, has said that voters can still support the open-space plan but reject a particular building project proposed by the Irvine Co., such as Westpark II.