Newport Beach approves Irvine Co. plan for 700 units near John Wayne Airport
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A plan to transform office buildings into housing near John Wayne Airport is moving forward after securing unanimous support from the Newport Beach City Council.
On Nov. 18, councilmembers backed a development agreement for the Irvine Co. to build 700 market-rate units off MacArthur Boulevard. In exchange, the city outlined a public benefits package, including a pledge by the developer to build up to 49 affordable housing units off-site in the future, which amounts to 7% of the market-rate units.
The nearly 19-acre MacArthur Court Campus is set to be the home of two five-story residential towers. A conceptual plan for the mixed-use project also includes a 10,000-square-foot building for either retail or restaurants.
“This [agreement] is voluntary to vest rights,” Liz Westmoreland, a city planner, told councilmembers. “It’ll allow them to build the units over the 10-year period. However, the way that the development agreement is structured is to incentivize the development at an earlier date within this housing cycle.”
Public benefits include a $17,000 fee for any units issued a building permit on or after July 1, 2028, to encourage the developer to build within the housing cycle that ends the following year. Other benefits include a $3.25-million payment to help revitalize MacArthur Boulevard.
The Irvine Co., based in Newport Center, also traded a required half-acre neighborhood park for an acre of open space on the project site.
But the affordable housing component of the public benefits tradeoff drew the most scrutiny from residents and other concerned members of the public, especially as the Irvine Co. would be able pay an in-lieu fee of roughly $37,000 if it failed to build the cheaper units or dedicate land to the city for them.
“I don’t think we’re ever going to achieve the city’s housing plan with the number of affordable units at a 7% rate,” said Ron Rubino, vice president of the Eastbluff Homeowners Community Assn. “It seems like they should be built at the time you approve this kind of development agreement and set, where you can’t buy out of it.”
The first building permit for off-site affordable housing would have to be issued by Jan. 31, 2029.
“It’s cheaper just to pay that in-lieu fee than build affordable units at some unspecified site somewhere else,” said Adam Leverenz. “People that serve cocktails, flip burgers and work on boats should have somewhere that they can live close to work.”
The debate over the MacArthur Court project came during the same meeting where councilmembers scheduled a November 2026 ballot measure referendum on the housing plan they passed last year .
Proponents have argued, in part, that the plan does not consider enough workforce housing.
A staff report did not outline which income tiers the 49 affordable units would be designated for. The Irvine Co. also did not have a specific design for the overall project to share with councilmembers at the meeting.
In the future, the Newport Beach Planning Commission will have to look over a site development review, traffic study and other entitlements before the city issues any building permits.
