Irvine’s Great Park Deal

Just three months ago, Irvine’s vision of building a “Great Park” in the heart of Orange County at the closed El Toro Marine base seemed doomed.

The Navy had announced that it would auction off the 4,738-acre parcel, stunning city officials who had expected that the land would be given to them to create the park after voters in March rejected an airport. Even the staunchest park supporters had to concede the possibility of a developer buying the base whole and building 30,000 homes on it.

But on Tuesday, Navy and city officials revealed a plan that seemed to give Irvine everything it had hoped for, with more than 80% of the base dedicated to parkland.

So what happened in the past 90 days to change that scenario?

In short, the city renowned for creating master-planned communities brokered what it boasts is its most impressive land-use deal yet.

In a series of meetings and conference calls, Irvine officials persuaded the Navy to sell the property only to buyers who would agree upfront to deed more than 80% of the land they would buy over to the park--an extraordinary concession that land-use experts say will bring down bids significantly and slash potential revenues for the Navy.

Irvine relied on negotiating skills developed over decades of dealing with another large land owner: the Irvine Co. Also of help was the Navy’s eagerness to dispose of the site quickly, to avoid the kind of base-reuse battles that have dragged on for years elsewhere. El Toro had already become a problem for the military as county politicians argued for a decade over whether to build an airport there.

“We told [Navy officials] that if they wanted to go down another path, we couldn’t make any guarantees,” said Brian Myers, a consultant to Irvine.

“We spent a lot of time explaining to them how they could enhance the value of their property, and putting candid information on the table about the pulse of the local community.”

The city ultimately made the Navy an offer it couldn’t refuse: It would zone lucrative building rights on 738 acres of the base, where developers would be able to build 3,400 homes and 2.9 million square feet of retail space immediately. There would be no drawn-out approval process, no project-by-project environmental impact reports and no decade-long lawsuits.

The Navy could sell the parcels with development rights built in and wash its hands of the process altogether. It was the quick end the Navy was looking for.

“The military does not want to be caretakers of these bases for a long time,” said Jeffrey Finkel, executive director of the National Assn. of Installation Developers, a Washington-based group that helps communities navigate base closures. “They are under a great deal of pressure to sell as quickly as they can.”

“The Department of Defense realized that their plan to make billions of dollars off the closed bases is just not feasible,” Finkel said.

When it comes to El Toro, some experts predict that the land sale could bring in as little as a few hundred million dollars, since developers will be buying the property knowing they will have to fund not only the park land, but all the infrastructure and maintenance costs associated with the park.

And if the environmental problems are as immense as some fear, the Navy’s return will be cut significantly.

The property has long been listed as a federal Superfund site. It remains contaminated with jet fuel, radiological materials and other hazardous waste. An underground plume of toxic materials already threatens the ecological reserve at Upper Newport Bay, the Environmental Protection Agency says.

Navy officials say that the base is 87% clean and that the remaining toxic substances can be removed at minimal expense in the next few years. But some environmental analysts warn that untold contamination could cost as much to remove as the Navy makes on the land sale.

“Everyone over the last 10 years has been so absorbed with whether there would be an airport on the base that the hazardous-waste aspect has been ignored,” said Gregory Hurley of the county’s El Toro Restoration Advisory Board.

The environmental attorney said the site investigation by the Navy and the EPA is being done with an airport in mind. He said that federal environmental officials have not looked under the asphalt and in many of the areas where houses and playing fields will be built.

Hurley said that the federal investigation relied on Navy records instead of soil sampling. Wherever Navy records pinpointed toxic material, the investigators ran tests. But other areas have been left untested, even though Hurley said members of the county committee walking around the base on their own have found radioactive material the federal investigation failed to uncover.

The committee also believes that a decade-old sewer system, over which the park would be built, is leaking hazardous waste.

“When these things remained capped in concrete, I wasn’t that concerned,” Hurley said. “Now that they are going to be dug up and interact with humans, I am deeply concerned.”

City officials say Hurley and those who share his concerns are pro-airport advocates--something they deny--and that Irvine has found no problems in its own review of the Navy’s cleanup.