Irvine Poised to Waive FivePoint’s Affordable Housing Ask

The Irvine City Council is considering a land swap deal with FivePoint Holdings that will waive some affordable housing requirements for the locally based developer.

If the City Council gives the go-ahead, FivePoint will hand over 35 acres next to the Irvine Transportation Center, dubbed the “Crescent site,” in exchange for 26.4 acres in the Great Park Neighborhoods master-planned community for future development, LAist reported.

FivePoint CEO Daniel Hedigan with renderings of Irvine Great Park — Renderings of Irvine Great Park (SWA Group)

At the same time, the city would clear the way for 1,300 new market-rate homes developed by FivePoint while dropping the previous requirement to build more than 250 affordable housing units — about 25 percent of all the planned affordable housing in Great Park.

FivePoint would be responsible for a $15 million contribution to the city for a long-discussed library and a study for a columbarium to be built at Great Park. Of that, $5 million would be pulled from special taxes paid by homeowners in the area. The columbarium proposal arose after veterans failed to get their wish for a service member cemetery in Irvine and took their plans to Anaheim for state backing.

City officials are looking to build a transit-oriented development that would link the Great Park and Irvine Spectrum neighborhoods at the Crescent site.

“The area is particularly well-suited for higher-density residential and mixed-use formats, sidewalk-activated retail and creative commercial spaces, walkable urban blocks and a lifestyle environment attractive to young professionals and knowledge-sector employees,” according to a city staff report cited by LAist.

The City of Irvine is required by the state to plan for 23,610 new residential units by 2029 as part of its housing element. Affordable housing must make up 14,939 of those units.

Great Park Neighborhoods spans 2,100 acres and opened its first community in 2013. Since then, it’s become one of the country’s top-selling master-planned projects, with builders reporting more than 7,000 home sales, the Orange County Business Journal reported. FivePoint has already sold more than 9,000 lots in Great Park, averaging about $790,000 each.— Chris Malone Méndez