Supervisors to Get Irvine Co. Coast Plan

The Irvine Co.’s development plans for the largest stretch of vacant coastal land in Orange County will probably reach the Board of Supervisors for approval in August or September, county planners said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the county Planning Commission voted 4 to 0 to endorse the company’s design for hotels, golf courses and homes on 9,400 acres along a 2.5-mile stretch between Laguna Beach and Corona del Mar.

Approval came after the company agreed to add another 252 acres of open space, meaning the project will have 2,902 acres of open space.

“I think we all agree that it has been vastly improved over the 1981 plan and over the prior draft plan that preceded the one the Planning Commission approved,” said Terry Watt, a spokeswoman for the Friends of the Irvine Coast Coalition, which has fought the Irvine Coast development.

But, Watt said, “we have a lot of work to do” before the environmental group will indicate complete acceptance of the project.

Kenneth C. Winter of the county Environmental Management Agency said the supervisors are due to consider the project in late August or September, and the state Coastal Commission will take it up if the supervisors approve it.

The Friends of the Irvine Coast Coalition has battled the company for years over its plans for the project. Although the company won county and state approval in 1981 for its initial proposal, which included a 10-story office building on Coast Highway, it withdrew the plans after objections from the coalition and others.

The latest plans, unveiled last year, call for four hotels with a total of 2,150 rooms. There would also be 2,600 residential units in a variety of housing types, as well as commercial retail space.

Watt said her group was concerned by the size of the hotels but might be willing to accept them if the supervisors require the company not to “come back in 2, 5, 15 years and ask for more hotels.”

She said that water quality monitoring and habitat protection were also issues of concern to the coalition, but “virtually all the concerns we raised have been addressed.”