IRVINE : City Panel OKs Northwood 5 Plan

After holding four public hearings on a proposed 2,885-home community on the northern outskirts of the city, the Planning Commission voted unanimously this week to recommend the project’s approval.

The City Council, which has final authority over the Irvine Co.’s proposed Northwood 5 plan residential village, is expected to hold its own public hearing on the matter June 11.

The new community would be built on 416 acres of orange groves just outside the city limits, north of the current Northwood village. The area is expected to eventually be annexed to the city.

Northwood 5 would be the company’s first new major residential village since the 1985 approval of the 5,600-home Westpark village. Last December, the City Council approved an Irvine Co. plan to build about 3,850 homes adjoining Westpark in a subdivision planners called Westpark II, but a residents group has so far managed to stall the project.

In January, they gathered enough signatures on a petition to place a referendum on the Nov. 4 city ballot to decide if the project should be built under the city-approved plan.

The Northwood 5 plans call for a mixture of single-family homes, townhouses and apartments. A “neighborhood green” in the center of the development would contain a park, a school site, space for a church and child care building and a private recreation facility.

The central area would be linked via a tree-lined “promenade” to a 150,000-square-foot retail center at an extension of Culver Drive and the future Portola Parkway. The center would contain a supermarket, drug store and other retail shops.

As part of Northwood 5, the Irvine Co. would extend Portola Parkway from Jeffrey to Jamboree roads.

If the Northwood 5 project is built, the Irvine Co. has agreed to set aside as open space 961 acres of canyons and other lands north of the city called “the sinks.” That parcel is slated to be added to a regional county park, and it would be the first major property dedicated to the public under an open-space agreement approved by Irvine voters in 1988.

Although the commission unanimously agreed to support the building of Northwood 5, not all commissioners agreed with all aspects.

Commissioner Kate Clark said she wanted the company to pay $50,000 a year for a local bus shuttle service that would be tested for four years to determine if residents would use it. The proposal for the shuttle was made by city transportation planners.

Other commissioners, however, voted to delete it from the final plan.

Clark also said she was concerned about the plan’s affordable-housing requirements.

The city’s general housing plan asks builders to set aside 25% of all new units as affordable to families earning 80% or less of the county’s median income, which sets the level at about $52,200 a year for a family of four. The city’s guideline is not a hard and fast rule, and in the Northwood 5 plan, the Irvine Co. designated only 288 of the units, or 10%, as affordable.