An aspiring Irvine city council candidate knocked on my door recently.
We had a pleasant conversation. She was nice. When I asked her what she stood for, she asserted she would not take money from developers.
I replied, “I don’t know why you wouldn’t take money from developers. I actually think you should!” She looked at me like I was from another planet.
This is so predictable, so commonplace, and so wrong.
As an architect who has practiced in Orange County and lived in Irvine starting in 1987, I would assert that no one has done more to provide a positive and innovative vision for the future of Irvine than the developers working here, along with the architects, landscape architects, planners and designers who have partnered with them since before Irvine incorporated as a city.
From the beginning of the development of the Irvine Ranch, the Irvine Company, in collaboration with other developers, builders and professionals dreamed up and implemented a unique vision for the livable environment we have come to take for granted here, from the Village structure, lakes, hike and bike paths, open space, landscaped paseos, to some of the most innovative housing, office and shopping ideas that can be found anywhere.
Rather than going door to door and sending out negative campaign literature featuring what candidates might do to make the housing crisis worse by driving developers out, perhaps they might give some rational thought to how their wonderful homes and communities came into existence. (Hint: It wasn’t the politicians.)
Donald Pender, Irvine
