Irvine is rethinking its high-rise housing vision.
After green-lighting four towers going up along Jamboree Road, Irvine is coming to terms with a new reality: Not everyone is crazy about thousands of residents living in the commercial hub near John Wayne Airport.
The city is working on a development plan to curb where high-rises and other higher density housing can go.
It recently wrapped up a series of community meetings on the plan, which is set to go before the Planning Commission for the second time on Thursday.
The City Council, slightly altered from November’s election, is set to take up the plan in April or May.
Irvine is responding to complaints, and one lawsuit, from area manufacturers.
Some big names are involved: drug maker Allergan Inc., upscale clothier St. John Knits International Inc. and carpet maker Royalty Carpet Mills Inc.
All three are based in Irvine and have plants in the area.
“There has been a bit of a pause for everybody,” said Eric Martin, vice president of development with Canada’s Bosa Development Corp. His company is far along on twin, 18-story condo towers at the sprawling Park Place office campus.
The stakes are high for developers who have invested in projects not yet approved by the city, as well as for any property owner with thoughts of selling land to a housing developer.
The city’s plan not only would set boundaries but identify areas where housing would be most welcome.
Some property owners could see a windfall.
The Irvine Company, the county’s biggest landowner and developer, asked the city to include its Jamboree Center office complex in Irvine’s proposed development plan.
The Newport Beach-based company has no high-rise plans, according to spokesman Bill Rams. Still, “it wouldn’t have made sense” for their center to be excluded, he said.
City planners are out to concentrate development around Jamboree Road. The designated area would be bordered by the former Tustin Marine base, Campus Drive, the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway and the San Diego Creek Channel.
The effort could make Jamboree the urban draw long envisioned by Irvine Councilman Larry Agran, who served as mayor until November and has spearheaded Jamboree’s redevelopment.
Now Irvine’s plan is set to come before a City Council with a slightly different flavor. Mayor Beth Krom replaced the termed-out Agran.
But Krom is an unknown entity to some developers, despite serving for years on the council. Agran’s name is nearly synonymous with Irvine politics, and he’s one of the county’s most known public figures.
In the past, Krom has been a political ally of his, and the two campaigned together in the runup to the November election.
Yet in Agran’s last days as mayor, the council directed city planners to design a plan that would appease manufacturers and still move some housing projects forward.
“We are caught in a quandary,” said Michael Haack, Irvine’s manager of development services, during a real estate industry luncheon.
There are 3,500 condos and apartments in the pipeline, Haack said.
In a detailed e-mail to the Business Journal, Mayor Krom said she is pleased with the effort by staff members to take into consideration all the players in the area.
“While it is not my vision to develop high-rises to the exclusion of other housing types in the (Irvine Business Complex), I am impressed with the projects now under construction,” Krom wrote. “And, given brisk sales, they clearly meet a market niche.”
Though Krom sees high-rises as providing needed housing, she does not share Agran’s raw enthusiasm for them. Agran was bullish to the point of being promotional when Bosa’s twin towers were approved by the city in 2003.
In any case, Irvine’s overtures to manufacturers have yet to win them over. One obvious flaw with its plan: The proposed area sits right on top of the manufacturers who complained.
The St. John Knits factory at the corner of Michelson Drive and Jamboree would be included in one of six core areas for housing. Allergan’s operations at Teller Avenue and Dupont Drive would border one, as would Royalty Carpet’s dyeing plant on Kelvin Avenue.
Mike Derderian, who owns Royalty Carpet and has operated in the area since the 1970s, is the most outspoken critic.
He described the city’s plan as a “free for all” on behalf of developers and property owners who want to sell to a housing developer.
The more residents, the more pressure there will be on manufacturers to leave the area due to complaints about noise, odors and the movement of trucks, Derderian said.
Derderian sued the city in 2003 for approving an apartment project near its plant on Kelvin without preparing an environmental impact report. The council approved the project without an environmental report because the site already was zoned for apartments.
Pamela Sapetto, principal with Irvine-based consultant Sapetto Group Inc., said the city is not discussing anything as drastic as a moratorium on development. Her company helps developers get projects entitled.
She said there have been some subtle changes in the dynamic between developers and the city. City staff members are asking developers for different elements, such as more public spaces.
Developers overall are optimistic things will go their way in the end, Sapetto said. Establishing rules isn’t necessarily a bad thing, she said.
“They do not like uncertainty,” Sapetto said of developers.
