Irvine Co., Residents of Turtle Rock Reach Accord on Project

In a surprise move, Irvine Co. officials and residents of the Turtle Rock neighborhood unveiled a compromise Tuesday for a controversial hillside community proposed for south Irvine.

The announcement was made at a City Council meeting packed with more than 300 residents prepared to protest the development. Instead, the agreement was greeted with applause.

“We’ve spent over two years involved in this project,” said John Greene, a member of Irvine Residents for Responsible Development. “It’s a success story. We have nothing but kudos to the Irvine Co. for doing that.”

Since the project was announced two years ago, the group comprising hundreds of Turtle Rock residents has lobbied against the developer’s plan for 2,500 homes, saying the result would be streets jammed with traffic, pastoral views destroyed and overcrowded schools.

“There were certainly things we felt strongly about such as density, traffic, the ridgeline and visual impacts,” Greene said. “We have always agreed they have a right to develop. Our concern was that it was done properly, that it was done right.”

Mayor Christina L. Shea called the compromise a landmark. “I’m so pleased to hear . . . at the 11th hour you were able to commit and come up with a very comprehensible agreement,” she said.

On Monday the two sides met privately and agreed on a plan that calls for 2,000 to 2,155 homes.

The city’s general plan allows up to 2,155 homes in the area, but the Irvine Co. had hoped to add 345 by using housing credits it had earned by exchanging development rights in other parts of the city. Company officials had cited the city’s housing shortage in defense of a larger project.

The council late Tuesday gave unanimous approval for the Irvine Co. to proceed with the 2,155 homes but not the additional units.