City Considering Plan to Convert Oak Creek Golf Course into New Residential Village

The Irvine City Council has given City staff the green light to continue talks with the Irvine Company and begin detailed studies of a plan to convert the Oak Creek Golf Course and adjacent properties into a 3,100-unit residential village that would include a new elementary school.
 
In addition to building a new school, the Irvine Company would provide an array of other public benefits — notably a unique and ambitious effort to create “instant affordability” in 200 existing apartment units throughout the City.
 
The action came on a 7-0 vote at the Council’s May 13th meeting, following three hours of staff reports, public comment, and Council discussion.
 
“It’s a great site,” said Councilmember William Go of the project area along the east side of Jeffrey Road south from the I-5 Freeway to Irvine Center Drive. “It’s central to everything. It’s going to be a good addition to the villages here in Irvine.”
 
Mayor Larry Agran said the work to date, laid out in a memorandum of understanding to guide further planning, is “a good start toward what I hope will be a good project that we can all be proud of.”
 
As outlined in the memorandum, in addition to the school to be built in the new village, the Irvine Company would also:

• Give the City a minimum of 1,000 and up to 2,000 vouchers for 65% discounts off rents in existing Irvine Company-managed apartments, to be provided to Irvine families at risk of homelessness. Each voucher would be good for two years, to give the families time to get on their feet financially, at which time they would be placed at the top of the priority list for permanent affordable units in Irvine.
   
• Give the City a long-term lease on the former Barnes & Noble bookstore in Woodbridge Village Center, which would be converted into a City library; and give the City a 6-acre site in North Irvine for future development as a library, park and community center.
   
• Give the City 315 acres of open space in North Irvine, 250 of which are producing orchards. Those orchard operations, plus operations on another 565 acres already owned by the City but operated by the Irvine Company, would be turned over to the City to run, providing revenue to maintain and expand its open space.
   
• Transfer to the City at no cost the current clubhouse at the Oak Creek Golf Course for conversion to a City community center.
   
• Dedicate land north of Portola Springs to be the site of a public safety training center.
   
• Give the City a lease for an “innovation center” to support entrepreneurial efforts in Irvine.
   
• Pay community benefit fees to the City totaling $90.4 million over the next eight years. This money could be used by the City for several public projects, including expansion of the Irvine CONNECT transit system.

Public comments were divided on the plan, with Oak Creek Golf Club members and some nearby neighbors opposed on the grounds it would eliminate sports opportunities for students and would eliminate the golf course’s open space. Other residents supported the plan, citing the need for housing and the host of other benefits being offered by the Irvine Company.
 
The voucher program was especially contentious, with some affordable housing advocates questioning its long-term impact. They noted that under the City’s affordable housing ordinance, the project would normally be required to have 15% (465 units) permanently affordable, rather than 200 affordable units scattered around the City during a 10-year voucher program.
 
City staff and Irvine Company officials said that under the ordinance, the Irvine Company could choose to pay “in lieu” fees instead of building the affordable units, and those fees would total about $56 million for the proposed project. They pointed out that the City stands to realize several times that amount in cash, vouchers, land and facilities.
 
Mayor Agran noted that the affordable units would be many years in the future, while there are people in Irvine who are in need right now and the voucher program is already under way, as the Irvine Company agreed to start it now rather than wait for final project approval. Agran said a scaled-up and revised version of the plan could lead to the conversion of thousands of existing Irvine Company apartments into affordable units within the next five years.
 
City Manager Oliver Chi said the City will still work for the creation of new affordable housing in previously identified target areas, explaining that the voucher program is being used as a complementary effort to address urgent needs.
 
With the Council’s unanimous 7-0 vote, the City staff will now begin detailed traffic and environmental studies. The City and Irvine Company will also begin gathering input from the community and other stakeholders — including business groups and regional & state agencies. They will continue to work together on refining the plan based on those studies and community input, and eventually draft a plan to go to the Planning Commission for review. Chi estimated that the proposal would return to the Council for its final review and approval in one to two years.