Irvine residents could have the opportunity to vote on whether or not they approve replacing the Oak Creek Golf Club with housing – 37 years after residents voted to protect this area as open space.
City council members are contemplating constructing another residential village in the central portion of the city that would replace the golf course with 3,100 housing units, a new school, parks and other community spaces.
But residents and former city officials are raising concerns that the plan, in conjunction with the Irvine Company, would violate the golf course’s preservation as permanent open space, a designation passed by voters in 1988.
Critics argue that since voters originally chose to preserve the golf course as open space in the ‘80s, it should either remain that way forever, or the item should appear on a future ballot in order to remove the preservation designation.
Irvine voters might get that opportunity to decide on the issue after a few council members expressed interest in putting the issue on an upcoming ballot.
At Irvine’s city council meeting on June 24, the council voted unanimously to move forward with a general plan amendment analysis for the proposed Oak Park Village.
That means city staff will spend about the next year conducting assessments on the project, including an environmental and traffic review, before it appears back in front of various commissions and eventually the city council sometime next year.
The council is expected to discuss placing the open space designation issue on a future ballot at an upcoming council meeting.
In 1988, the city council voted to place an item on the June 7 ballot known as Initiative Resolution 88-1. It outlined the conservation of certain open space areas across town to help balance development with open space as the city grew.
That effort, which was approved by voters during the summer 1988 election, included a map outlining various spaces to be conserved as open space. The map includes an overlay for Oak Creek Golf Club, designated as “conservation/open space.”
But Irvine City Attorney Jeff Melching said the specific wording of that resolution gives the council authority to make changes without consideration from voters.
“The people did not directly legislate an amendment to the city’s general plan,” Melching said during a council meeting on May 13. “The people advised the city council that it should make amendments to the general plan.”
“And because the measure was structured that way, that gives the city council the discretion now to re-amend the general plan to remove that preservation designation without going back out to the voters,” he said. “You have the legal right to do that.”
[Read: Irvine’s Oak Creek Golf Club Could Become Housing, Does it Go Against a Voter Initiative?]
During the June 24 meeting, Mayor Larry Agran disagreed, saying the only way the preservation designation could be removed is if another vote of the people decided so.
“The only way that [open space designation] can be changed is if the people of the city of Irvine approved a subsequent ballot measure,” said Agran, who was mayor in 1988 when the resolution was originally passed.
“My belief is that that’s the way we have to play it. We have to play it straight. My view is that we need to be faithful to what we said at the time.”
Councilmembers James Mai and Mike Carroll agreed, voicing interest in putting the question back to the voters instead of removing the preservation designation from the golf course themselves.
“I think we should go to the voters out of the sake of transparency,” Mai said. “I want to hear from the voters, and I want to hear from the voters en masse — that’s how this thing works right?”
Melching disagreed with the mayor, saying he still believes the council has the option to change the open space designation without any input from the voters.
But he emphasized that perspective is only a legal opinion — not a recommendation to the council to take that path.
“I believe that there are good arguments for why the city council can, without going back to a vote of the people, amend the general plan to remove the preservation designation on the Oak Creek golf course,” Melching said.
“I want to reiterate — that’s different from the question whether the city council should take that step without going out to the voters. That question is a question for the city council, in my view.”
Councilmember Kathleen Treseder said she didn’t have the expertise to determine which legal argument was correct and requested staff return with more analysis that’s easier for the average person to understand.
She also criticized the lack of affordable housing for the proposed Oak Park development and said she’d be interested in revisiting that element of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Irvine Company.
[Read: Irvine Moves to Prioritize Affordable Housing for Locals]
Irvine Residents Protest Oak Park Development
Over 80 residents spoke during the June 24 council meeting — the majority expressed disapproval of eliminating the golf course and adding thousands of new housing units in the center of the city.
Common concerns included increased traffic, additional pressure on local schools and fear over losing open space.
Some residents said if the council removes the preservation designation for the golf course then it will put the rest of the city’s protected open space at risk.
“Once they allow these loopholes, they’re opening 16,000 acres of open space to development,” former Irvine Mayor Christina Shea said in an interview before the meeting on June 24. “And that is really a huge problem.”
Some speakers at the meeting supported the development to help address the state’s housing shortage and provide housing opportunities for young professionals in the city.
Others, like 46-year resident Heidi Francois, said residents are ready to pursue a recall campaign or legal action if the council doesn’t put the issue before voters.
“If the council votes against us, we’ll file a referendum, we’ll pursue legal action, we’ll start a recall campaign against any official who betrays the public trust, we’ll hold the city attorney accountable,” she said during the meeting, “and we’ll push for a new initiative to give voters, not politicians, the final say on open space.”
Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.