IRVINE : Panel Rejects Condos in Industrial Park

For the second time this year, the Planning Commission has denied permission to build housing in an industrial park where hazardous chemicals are used.

In a 2-2 vote Thursday night, the commission said that building the 138-unit Newport Pacific condominiums close to manufacturers using toxic chemicals is unwise. Commissioner Kate Clark was absent.

The landowner, the Resolution Trust Corp., will appeal the commission’s decision to the City Council, said Al Marshall, president of Newport Pacific Development Corp. and representative of the owner.

The units are proposed for a vacant three-acre parcel at Kelvin and Derian avenues, next door to the Charter Apartments in the Irvine Business Complex. The city approved the 403-unit Charter complex in 1987, before stricter hazardous materials reporting laws went into effect.

City planners said the area would be safe for residents if certain safety features were added and recommended that the commission approve the condominium project. Under the recommendations from the Community Development Department, the builder would be required to install safety features found nowhere else in the city because of the increased chances of a toxic accident affecting the health of residents.

Those features would include rooftop chemical detectors that would sound an early warning alarm to residents, evacuation drills and a master switch to turn off the ventilation system to all units, thus reducing the flow of outside air into the homes in case of a toxic incident.

Commissioners, led by Richard J. Salter, did not agree that the project would be safe for the new residents. Salter made the same argument in January when the commission narrowly denied the 87-unit McGaw Apartment project a block away.

Apartments or condominiums will be built on the site, Marshall said. The decision before the city now isn’t whether the location is safe for homes, just what type of homes would be best, he said.

But Planning Commissioner Lowell S. Johnson, who joined Salter in denying the project, said no homes should be built on the site.