Published: Nov. 8, 2013 Updated: 2:52 p.m.
Newly raised objections to latest development plan too little, too late to halt progress.
When we last left the Great Park, we hailed the unanimous Irvine City Council vote to begin negotiations with developer FivePoint Communities as a “coming together of all sides that seems a welcomed harbinger of long-awaited progress on the park.”
How soon the honeymoon ends. Now, political maneuvering and unfounded accusations of rushed development and commercialization look to undermine the sizable progress for which Orange County residents have waited 10 years at the closed Marine Corps air base.
After the Sept. 10 vote to move the park forward, we expected the membership of the Irvine City Council to continue on its path of deliberation but the laundry list of complaints that we saw at last month’s Great Park Board of Directors meeting was disconcerting.
The meeting makes us worry that Irvine Council members Beth Krom and Larry Agran, sadly, are becoming the anti-park duo on the five-member board.
After 25 meetings and untold hours of work, developer FivePoint seems to have done its due diligence, producing a 200-page design package and spending more than $1 million on a litany of consultants and design experts, according to Brian Myers, a FivePoint adviser. So, it seems a stretch to describe as rushed a project that has been waiting for approval since December 2011.
“There have been reviews, reviews, reviews,” said Christina Shea, a colleague of Ms. Krom and Mr. Agran on both the Irvine council and the park board.
Council members Krom and Agran contend the proposed multisport complex and golf course are a commercializing violation of chief architect Ken Smith’s vision, with Mr. Agran even calling it an “evisceration” of the original concept.
“We do not need new reasons to attract people here; we are the job center,” Ms. Krom said. “We are not a community that is desperate for any commercial operation.”
Irvine is undoubtedly a job center and a desirable place to live, but many people made their home in the city with the understanding their community would have a vibrant park – a promise yet to be delivered upon under the mayoral terms of Mr. Agran and Ms. Krom.
Also, arguing that the long-planned, albeit more robust, sports complex and revenue-generating golf course are tantamount to commercializing the Great Park is an overstatement or politicization meant to create dissent. Only about half of the 688 acres in the current proposal are taken up by the golf course and sports complex – that amounts to only about 26 percent of the 1,300-acre park.
“Leasing out our fields for public use has always been contemplated by the Great Park board, including previous boards,” Councilman Jeff Lalloway told us. “This was always the vision.”
But Ms. Krom said she worried supporters of the plan stood to “commercially benefit” from the park.
Let’s be realistic, FivePoint sees community benefits for building the park or they wouldn’t be offering $174 million to make it a reality. But keep in mind, improvements such as this add social, cultural and economic value to a community – a benefit for residents and property owners.
“They should vote for the public benefit and not make it a political issue,” Mayor Steven Choi told us. “No one is going to come and develop a park unless they have some benefit.”
This is a win-win scenario. Build the Great Park.
