Irvine Will Put Warning About El Toro’s Effects on the Record

For the first time in its six-year fight against a proposed airport at El Toro, Irvine will take the offensive in notifying those interested in buying or renting a home or in moving a business there about the potential effects of the airport.

Current sales disclosures by the Irvine Co. don’t provide complete information about the county’s plans for the 4,700-acre Marine base, said Irvine Councilman Larry Agran, who pushed for the disclosure plan that received unanimous City Council approval Tuesday night.

“There shouldn’t be a whitewash of the fight we’re engaged in,” Agran said. “None of us want to frighten anybody, but we want to inform everybody.”

City staffers will take the next 30 days to develop a booklet detailing the county’s plans for El Toro after the Marines leave the base in July, and the city’s battle against it. The City Council then will decide how and when potential residents and business owners will receive the information.

Agran said the booklet should include warnings that the airport is planned for 24-hour operations, including about 40 takeoffs and landings between midnight and 6 a.m. A question-and-answer handout provided to prospective home buyers by the Irvine Co. says the county voted to adopt nighttime flight restrictions, even though such limits will not be allowed after 2003 under federal law.

An Irvine Co. executive said the company must review what the city develops before commenting on the new booklet.

Michael LeBlanc, senior vice president in charge of development in Irvine, said the company already tries to disclose “what we know” about airport plans. Final approval by Orange County supervisors is expected in December for an international airport serving about 29 million passengers a year by 2020.

“Overall, I think it was a reasoned approach to deal within the range of [disclosure] alternatives,” LeBlanc said. “They want to make it clear to the prospective buyer that the city is trying to stop the airport. That is part of the whole story.”

City officials have been frustrated with the Irvine Co.’s refusal to declare itself either for or against the airport. That frustration erupted last month when Councilman Mike Ward sent a stinging letter to Irvine Co. Executive Vice President Gary Hunt challenging the company to take a position.

Ward said the company’s reluctance to join the debate “strained credulity” because nearly every other entity or individual affected by El Toro had taken a stand.

At the same time, the council asked City Atty. Joel Kuperberg to prepare a memo outlining the city’s options to disclose expected “harmful conflicts” from the proposed airport, which is at odds with the city’s General Plan. The options ranged from the booklet idea approved Tuesday night to billboards erected outside the company’s new-home developments warning about the airport plan.

Any city-drafted disclosures will affect the Irvine Co., which owns all of the remaining undeveloped land in the city. Kuperberg assured the council that the city would be protected against potential liability if the disclosures resulted in lost sales.

Agran also asked city staffers to recommend whether the city’s General Plan should be amended to make future development approvals contingent on the company’s distribution of the new disclosure booklet.

Paul Hiller, with the Irvine Chamber of Commerce, asked the city to hold off giving the booklet to potential businesses until representatives actually visited the city.

“Early in the game, they’re looking at any excuse to drop a city out [of consideration],” Hiller said.