Oak Creek Under Threat: Irvine’s Future Should Be Decided by Voters, Not Developers
During a recent City Council meeting, a major decision was made to advance the controversial Irvine Spectrum District, replacing the Oak Creek Golf Club with 3,100 homes. Despite adopting a visionary Urban Forest Master Plan, the City and the Irvine Company continue to push forward with developments that defy Irvine’s voter-approved open space protections. It’s time this plan is sent back to where it belongs — the ballot box.
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A recent Irvine City Council meeting was full of robust discussions and important decisions. Notably, a great plan was adopted to create an Urban Forest Master Plan to plant thousands of trees to beautify our city and allow nature to clean our air quality. However, The Irvine Company and the city voted on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to close down the Oak Creek Golf Club and replace it with approximately 3,100 homes, dubbed “The Irvine Spectrum District”. The Irvine Company’s plan to uproot our Oak Creek Golf Course open space, which is a portion of our voter approved Open Space Initiative Resolution No. 88-1, is more than troubling. It violates the voters desire for centrally located open space approved years ago.
District 1 Councilmember, Melinda Liu, argued that we need more affordable apartments for our schoolteachers and police officers. This is not quite right. She said they can’t afford to live here but most of these newly planned apartments and houses will be market rate. So why would they be able to live in the proposed Irvine Spectrum District if they can’t afford Irvine Company apartments now?
I still support my housing plan in requiring the Irvine Company to provide a percentage of their 40,000 apartments as work force housing, with incentives and help from the State. This is the answer to provide affordable housing for our working-class families in the long term. The Irvine Spectrum District housing plan, with only one school set aside and increased traffic, is not the answer. Nor is a bigger I-Connect bus system. We will need heliport pads on every corner to move folks from one end of the town to the other.
We are no longer following a master plan. Irvine now follows a master developer to create a Los Angeles-like community none of us moved here to enjoy. Look around the city right now and see all the apartments popping up everywhere. We should protect the quality of this community. Once this proposal comes back for final approval, I hope our residents will push this to go back to the voters where this plan deserves to end up. At the ballot box. Orangetree resident, Derek Shirk, shares my concerns. He expressed to me that this backroom deal betrays Irvine voters, goes against the General Plan, and backtracks on the promised open space protected areas we all want.
At last week’s City Council meeting, I read a letter sent to the City Council and City Manager from the former Vice President of the Irvine Company, Mike Le Blanc (see below). He agrees that our 1988 open space agreement requires the community to vote on this development plan for Oak Creek. Let’s push for a vote and vote this project down.