REAL ESTATE

Irvine High Density: California Pacific Homes, the Newport Beach building company owned by Irvine Co. mogul Donald Bren, is winning accolades these days for its new four-project high-density development in Irvine’s Westpark II neighborhood. Two of the tracts feature single-family homes about 8.5 units to the acre.

And Irvine architecture firm Danelian Associates has designed a hot-selling project for a Las Vegas builder that squeezes an average of 8.5 detached homes to the acre.

Even though the densities are far less than those planned by RGC, the ability to plot almost nine houses to the acre--the norm for a single-family tract is four or five to the acre--enables builders to deliver the stand-alone homes people want at prices that used to relegate buyers to the condo market.

Homes in the lower-priced of the two detached projects run from $164,900 for a 919-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath model to $204,900 for a three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath home with 1,265 square feet of space. Prices run from $222,900 to $274,900 for the 1,337- to 1,921-square-foot homes in the more expensive of the two detached developments.