Irvine is told to add 35,600 homes in 7 years

By Tony Barboza

July 25, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Irvine is being required to accommodate within seven years the second-largest number of new homes by a Southland city, trailing only Los Angeles, according to a housing plan approved this month.

Irvine must plan for 35,660 homes by 2014, according to the Southern California Assn. of Governments. Some would be designated for low-income families.

But Irvine officials say they don’t have enough land to meet those goals.

“This is not equitable,” said Housing Manager Mark Asturias, who said Irvine was dealt a disproportionate share -- 43% -- of Orange County’s immediate future housing.

Every five to seven years the state Department of Housing and Community Development sets housing quotas under a program called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment.

It is up to SCAG officials to determine where in Southern California those homes should be built. SCAG membership comprises 187 cities and six counties -- Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Imperial.

Cities and counties are required to accommodate the construction through zoning changes and other policy decisions.

Advocates of lower-cost housing say the quotas are necessary to force cities and counties to designate areas for low-income residential use and keep the median price of those homes from soaring.

About 40% of the 700,000 new homes slated for the Southern California area must be designated as intended for low-income or very low income families, according to the plan.

More than 150,000 homes are expected to be built in unincorporated areas of the six SCAG member counties, according to the plan.

For Irvine to meet its quota, Asturias said, the city would need to find 1,100 acres that he said do not exist.

The idea that Irvine has an abundance of available land is a misperception, he said, because many areas that appear vacant are locked into development agreements.

“From what we see, the choices are limited,” said Mike LeBlanc, senior vice president of the Irvine Co., one of the city’s largest landowners.

He said nearly all of the company’s land had development plans in place.

The quotas are meant to assure that all cities share the responsibility of building low-cost housing and are based mostly on available space and anticipated job growth, said Jeff Lustgarten, a SCAG spokesman.

It’s no surprise that many of the cities being asked to provide large numbers of new homes -- Lancaster, Palmdale and Irvine -- were recently ranked by the Census Bureau as among the nation’s 25 fastest-growing cities over 100,000 population.

But the quotas have at times been controversial.

In 2000, SCAG initially rejected the state’s mandated number of homes based on complaints by Inland Empire communities that said they were being forced to take on too much of the region’s low-cost housing.

Cities and counties that do not make plans to meet the housing quotas can lose certification from the state and become ineligible for state housing funds.

They also make themselves vulnerable to lawsuits by developers and low-cost housing groups.

This year, 46 cities appealed the number of homes they were assigned, but only 12 secured reductions.

Irvine appealed the order but was denied.

Developed as a master-planned community in the 1960s, Irvine has grown rapidly into a city of 200,000.

At 46 square miles, it is Orange County’s second-largest city by area.

It does not have the high density of its older, more populous neighbors such as Santa Ana and Anaheim, but has increasingly seen construction of high-rise condos -- a departure from its suburban past.

Its new housing quota may force the city to plan for even more apartments and condominiums.

That may be the only way to keep up with its job growth as land becomes more scarce, said Victoria Basolo, associate professor in the department of planning policy and design at UC Irvine.

But the city may have to move away from the suburban villages that have become its signature, she said.

“They can build vertically,” she said.

“It doesn’t have to be sprawl, and it doesn’t have to be single-family housing.”

tony.barboza@latimes.com

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More roofs needed

Irvine must plan for 35,000 new dwellings by 2014 to house a growing population, according to the Southern California Assn. of Governments. The six-county region must accommodate 700,000 homes, and Los Angeles tops the needs list.

Southern California cities with housing needs exceeding 9,000 units*

Los Angeles: 112,876

Irvine: 35,660

Palmdale: 17,910

Lancaster: 12,799

San Jacinto: 12,026

Hemet: 11,243

Riverside: 11,381

Desert Hot Springs: 9,923

Santa Clarita: 9,598

Long Beach: 9,583

Anaheim: 9,498