IRVINE : Affordable-Housing Plan Is Modified

When the City Council approved a plan in 1989 aimed at providing affordable housing for residents and workers in Irvine, the measure was hailed as a victory over high housing costs.

The goal, as interpreted by the former council, was to require developers to make one-fourth of new homes affordable to Orange County families earning less than half of the county’s median income, about $49,500 a year for a family of four.

This week, with most of that council voted out of office, the current council voted to water down those goals by changing the methods for achieving them.

After a debate that lasted nearly two hours, the City Council voted 4 to 1 Tuesday night to regard the 1989 housing goals as guidelines, not requirements. The methods for attaining those goals, including allowing developers to build subdivisions with more homes than allowed under the city-growth plan, were undesirable for the city, the new council majority said.

Under the new resolution, developers will not be required to build affordable homes if doing so forces them to subsidize the units. Encouraging the construction of affordable housing by offering developers the incentive of building more homes than what ordinarily would be allowed will be a last resort, the council said.

The lone dissenter was Councilwoman Paula Werner. Although Werner said she also dislikes the density bonus plan for builders, she said the City Council has watered down the housing goals so much that affordable homes might never be built.

The council, however, said forcing builders to subsidize low-income apartments requires them to raise the prices of non-subsidized homes.

Furthermore, Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan said, encouraging builders to achieve the 25% affordable goal by allowing a higher building density would lower the city’s quality of life. Sheridan also opposes allowing developers to set aside smaller amounts of parkland as a reward for building affordable units.

Residents do not want high-density housing, which would bring more people and traffic to the city, she said.

Werner said that since the council was retreating from the 1989 goals, it should honestly admit to doing so rather than change the methods by which to achieve those goals.

“This (resolution) just strikes me as a bit of a shell game,” she said.

Other critics of Tuesday’s action said the council has paved the way for larger profits for the Irvine Co., the city’s largest owner of developable land. Reducing the amount of affordable housing required in new projects benefits developers at the expense of the public, said Christopher B. Mears, chairman of the slow-growth Irvine Tomorrow.

Councilman Bill Vardoulis defended the action, arguing that the former council misinterpreted the housing goals as a mandate to build affordable homes even if doing so meant more people, traffic and higher home prices.