Irvine Grapples With Nearly 60,000 New Housing Units in General Plan Proposal 

There are 307,000 current residents of Irvine.  The State of California is pushing the city to create 60,000 NEW housing units.  If, on average, each unit has TWO residents, that is 120,000 people—or an increase of 40% in a city already beginning to look like the stack and pack of Manhattan.

“Now, the city is working to meet requirements laid out by the state to zone for over 23,000housing units by 2029.  

In order to meet that goal, city staff are proposing changing their general plan to expand housing zoning near the Spectrum mall, the Irvine Business Complex and the Great Park, allowing for over 57,000 new homes should developers choose to go in and build them. 

Imagine the streets, the schools, the hospitals, the police and fire services that will be needed.  This 40% could collapse the infrastructure of Irvine—but then, the folks in Sacramento do not care and probably never visited this city.

Irvine Grapples With Nearly 60,000 New Housing Units in General Plan Proposal 

BY NOAH BIESIADA, Voice of OC, 5/21/24  https://voiceofoc.org/2024/05/irvine-grapples-with-nearly-60000-new-housing-units-in-general-plan-proposal/

Irvine City Council members and residents are jumping into the debate over how much housing is too much this month as they look at a new proposal in their general plan to zone for thousands of new homes over the coming years. 

It comes as Irvine has been one of the leaders of housing development in Orange County, building more housing than the 10 largest cities in the county combined over the last decade, according to data compiled by the Kennedy Commission and city housing records. 

Now, the city is working to meet requirements laid out by the state to zone for over 23,000housing units by 2029.  

In order to meet that goal, city staff are proposing changing their general plan to expand housing zoning near the Spectrum mall, the Irvine Business Complex and the Great Park, allowing for over 57,000 new homes should developers choose to go in and build them. 

While city council members haven’t yet publicly discussed the issue, their appointed planning commissioners deadlocked over the issue and decided to send it up to the city council earlier this month. 

They’re not the only city grappling with this issue. 

Earlier this month, Huntington Beach lost their second lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta over their own housing allocation, where they claimed it was illegal for the state to mandate how charter cities develop. 

Surf City officials said they plan to appeal the decision – one which also froze their ability to zone for any new housing developments that didn’t meet state guidelines.

In interviews, some Irvine City Council members said the 57,000 homes they have to zone for is a little higher than they’d like, they have different ideas on how to handle it. 

Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder praised the work of city staff on the general plan for putting the new housing largely out of the city’s existing suburban neighborhoods and village developments, noting they needed more housing. 

“The state law is requiring us to zone these units, if we don’t comply they could take away a lot of our powers of self governance here and I do not want that,” Treseder said Monday morning. “If it were up to me, I don’t know that I would choose that high of a number, but this is a number we have been given.”

Councilman Mike Carroll said the city has to take a stand and find a way to work with the state, saying they should be rewarded for their efforts to comply with housing laws in the past instead of being punished with an increasingly large number of new housing units to zone for.  

“It’s like we’ve been punished for being a well-planned city,” Carroll said in a Monday morning interview. “You can be for responsible housing development, and against destroying the master plan.”

“I wholeheartedly think we need to do more affordable in all spectrums,” he continued. “But at the same time adding 60,000 housing units … to a city that’s already built out will destroy that city. It will change it forever.”

He suggested asking the city’s state representatives to intervene and work in Sacramento to reduce the city’s housing load. 

Councilwoman Tammy Kim said that the new units were necessary to support a growing population and bolster the city’s tax base to continue paying for vital services. 

“Our goal is to show that Irvine is proactively identifying opportunities that make sense for our community … we are not Huntington Beach,” Kim said. “If we’re going to look at protecting our open space then we need to do our parts by identifying building opportunities so that we can have local discretion on project approvals.”

She also noted much of the new housing could take place by redeveloping empty retail centers and said the city’s goal was to protect existing communities like Quail Hill and Woodbridge along with the existing parks and nature preserves. 

“We’re not changing the landscapes, but we’re looking for where there’s opportunities for infill projects,” Kim said. “This is still the master plan, but it’s a living breathing document, somewhat like the Constitution.”