TUSTIN : Action on East Tustin Project, Measure R Is Postponed

The City Council on Monday postponed action on two controversial matters: an Irvine Co. plan to develop an area of East Tustin Ranch; and a resolution in opposition to Measure R, the proposed half-cent increase in Orange County’s sales tax.

Dozens of residents were present to urge the council to reject Irvine Co.’s proposal to revise the East Tustin Specific Plan and East Tustin Development Agreement. They said the changes would allow too many apartments to be built in the area and that the increase in density would unduly increase traffic and crime.

The changes would alter the relative densities and positions of residential and commercial zones now permitted within the area, bounded by the Santa Ana Freeway, the Orange city limits, Jamboree Road and Browning Avenue.

The revisions also would allow the company to develop a 40-acre parcel that the Tustin Unified School District had previously planned to use for a school site and would release it from an obligation to build a hotel, a report to the council stated.

Irvine Co. officials pointed out that, in return for zoning and other changes, the company would build a five-acre park and do special landscaping.

Council members said they were sympathetic to residents’ concerns and that they would not approve the changes as proposed.

Later in the session, Councilman Jeffery M. Thomas urged the board to approve a resolution opposing the sales-tax increase. Council members deferred a decision on that matter too, citing the late hour and pointing out that they had not had an opportunity to review the resolution.