Orange County, the Housing Lab

They breeze in for the day on flights from Utah, Nevada, even as far as Japan, to glimpse the Orange County lifestyle, which John Martin promises is so impressive that it must be seen in person.

But the whirlwind tours on which Martin and others take clients don’t involve strolls through Crystal Cove, hikes on the ridges of Laguna Canyon or sipping margaritas on Dana Point yachts.

No, the visitors will experience the Yale Loop, that confusing web of streets through Irvine’s master-planned communities that’s notorious for trapping drivers in circles.

Martin, an urban planner with strong ties to local development companies, sees the homes on the circular thoroughfare as works of art. The steady stream of builders and government officials who make the pilgrimage to get a look at them on private, daylong tours conducted by Martin and other paid consultants seem to agree. Variations on the loop have popped up all over the world.

Which is why those homes have a prominent place in Martin’s latest project: an as-yet-untitled 69-chapter book highlighting design “breakthroughs and innovations” in Orange County.

That’s right, Orange County.

“He’s writing a book about design innovations there?” quipped Stefanos Polyzoides, a Los Angeles architect who is among the many who call the county a sprawling mess and find it nothing short of tragic that its housing culture has been exported all over the world. “Sounds like a very short book.... It is just senseless subdivisions as far as the eye can see.”

Innovation That’s Not Always Obvious

But when Martin navigates his silver Mercedes SUV through the thick iron gates surrounding the housing developments--many of which he had a hand in planning--he sees only a mark of pride for the county. “[Critics] are so quick to point out the flaws that they fail to notice how many great things we’ve done,” he said.

Exhibit No. 1 offered by Martin: the Woodbridge development, built on the loop in the 1970s. It looks like a bunch of oversized, wood-shingled single-family houses.

Martin urges a closer look.

They are actually multifamily units. Three to each house. Yet they were not designed as block buildings like so many other townhomes were at the time. The design broke up the monotony and resulted in a replica New England neighborhood instead of just more apartment complexes. Each pod is designed like a unique mansion. For 1970s townhouses, Martin says, the architecture was rich and diverse, and is still copied.

“We were trying to create a Cape Cod effect here,” he said. “The look is not a repetitious look. It’s got a small-town atmosphere.

“People weren’t turned off by there being more homes per acre here,” he said. “It’s got parks, it’s got great architecture. People love it.” Resale figures show that the townhomes are still more popular with homebuyers than many neighboring homes in other styles.

Martin, a consultant who spends much of his time studying demographic trends to help builders determine shifts in the marketplace, has worked for the Irvine Co. as well as the Mission Viejo Co. He continues to consult with builders on projects locally and throughout the West. He is also a lecturer at UC Irvine, USC and Cornell University in New York on trends in residential real estate and community design.

A library in his office contains large filing cabinets full of architectural sketches, sales numbers, photos and promotional material from every major residential development built in Orange County since the mid-1960s. Between riffling through these files and hopping across the state to interview leaders of the housing industry for his book, Martin preaches the gospel of Orange County design to clients all over the map.

Granted, Martin says, the developments lack adequate public transportation, stores and offices that can be reached by foot, and a healthy diversity of income groups living alongside one another. These are all the things new urbanists such as Polyzoides say are mandatory to create a livable community.

Martin pointed to these shortcomings as things to avoid when he consulted with Riverside County officials on the draft of their general plan, which will guide growth there. Yet when it comes to mass-producing houses that are attractive, Martin insists you can’t go wrong following Orange County’s lead.

Exhibit No. 2: The Cortabella development in Irvine.

Martin beams while driving through the community, where homes are built 20 to the acre in the style of a Mediterranean seaside villa. Such high densities are applauded by advocates of controlled growth because they cluster the homes and leave open space elsewhere.

There are no driveways: The garages face one another in courtyards paved with faux stone. Fountains, statues and fancy Italian-style railings adorn the buildings. Large French windows open onto small balconies overlooking the courtyards.

“We came up with this when three of us took a trip to the Mediterranean for the Irvine Co. in 1987,” Martin said. “This design is popping up all over the place now.”

Keeping Garages From Protruding

It’s on to several more exhibits in Irvine and Newport Beach, where homes are built with varied architecture and alleys in the back, creating an attractive view from the street. Garages don’t stick out like snouts: They are recessed behind the front of the house so the communities don’t look like a sea of garages. Lot sizes are mixed to make the development look more natural and less like a checkerboard.

At the Mahogany and Mayfield developments, also in Irvine, houses built with all these concepts face a look-alike, garage-fronted community across the street. “These homes sold four times as fast,” Martin says of the more diverse homes.

He acknowledges that the prices of the homes he cites are out of reach for most people but says that is because land in Orange County is so outrageously expensive. The design concepts, Martin says, are being exported to other regions where prices are in range for middle-class families. For instance, the same house that would sell in the $600,000s here would be in the $200,000s in Las Vegas.

The idea that these concepts can be transported affordably does not sit well with everyone.

“It’s really a tale of two Orange Counties,” said Robert Lang, a professor of planning at Virginia Tech who has written extensively about urbanization in the West. “Design critics hate the developers’ guts and think the county was a squandered opportunity. Yet industry people all over the world think it was a huge success.”

So successful that developers of the first mega-scale master-planned community in the Salt Lake City area are looking to Martin and other experts from Orange County for guidance. They are dropping in for a tour later in the winter.

There, the Sunrise development will rise on a former copper mine outside the city and will be home to 40,000 residents. The blueprints are being touted in Utah as the foundation for a sustainable, walkable suburban city, with viable commercial centers mixed in with attractive housing and public transportation to downtown.

Martin puts it on the scale of the Irvine Co.’s creation of the city of Irvine. “Utah has never had a development like this,” he said. The developers of Sunrise also plan to use homebuilding techniques that were spawned in Orange County, from those used in courtyards to the blends of architectural styles.

That comes as no surprise to William Fulton, a land use expert and author of books about urbanization in Southern California.

“The suburban developments built in Orange County were extraordinary for what they were,” Fulton said: a compact, smart and stylish alternative to the standard, boxy houses on big plots elsewhere in the nation. “The problem is the county has outgrown the suburban structure on which it was built.”

‘No Such Thing as Build-Out’

“Developers used to just assume that when they built what they did, those towns were done,” Fulton said. “Now we are finding there is no such thing as build-out. Suburban communities need to figure out how to recycle themselves. For Orange County, this is a tough trick.”

It’s tough because public transit is scarce and so are urban centers that can be redeveloped to accommodate more people. In Utah and elsewhere, builders have a chance to avoid Orange County’s mistakes.

Some dispute that this is even possible. Polyzoides and others say developers looking for inspiration should look north.

“They need to be thinking about train lines, intense housing, mixed-use communities with commercial and residential that stress walking and an ecological balance,” he said. “Los Angeles is doing this and coming back with a vengeance. But there is still no innovation south of the Orange Curtain.”

Martin doesn’t see it that way as he drives through a Newport Beach development full of pocket parks, alleys and mixed lot sizes. “People love this stuff,” he said. “I can’t wait to show it to the Utah folks.”