Countywide : Offer Made for UCI Land for Toll Road

County toll road officials have offered the University of California $10.5 million for a little more than 25 acres of what is now part of an ecological preserve at UC Irvine.

Under the proposal, the UC Board of Regents would sell the 25.2-acre area on the southwest side of the campus.

Thursday’s offer, approved by tollway agency board members at a meeting in Santa Ana, is the first public disclosure of the proposed purchase price.

About $2.7 million would be used to mitigate noise caused by cars on the toll road. And 18.7 acres of land would be subject to a coastal sage scrub habitat restoration program, at least half of which would be at a location designated by the university.

However, acting UCI Chancellor L. Dennis Smith removed the item from the agenda at a regents’ meeting Thursday in order to allow more time for discussions on campus, where unhappy faculty and students strongly oppose the sale.

“It has been delayed to give additional time for campus consultation,” said UCI spokeswoman Linda Granell. The Academic Senate’s land use subcommittee was scheduled to discuss the issue Friday.

When UCI officials began negotiating with the tollway agencies over the 25.2 acres at the southern end of campus, it was thought that nothing would be decided before January, 1993. Some faculty members have accused Smith of rushing through the land deal without proper consultation.

The executive committee of the UCI Academic Senate held a special meeting last week at which an overwhelming majority voted for a resolution opposing the land sale.

This followed a previous faculty senate vote last June in which the faculty expressed concern about the corridor’s potential impact on the ecological preserve and the noise impact on current and future university housing and academic units.

Some faculty members fear that the loss of the acreage, which includes the most biologically diverse portion of the reserve, will be a serious loss not only environmentally but also in terms of teaching resources.

Smith, meanwhile, has argued that the toll road is essential for the continued fiscal growth of the university and will account eventually for 35% of the traffic entering the campus.

He has pointed out that the route was included in campus plans years ago.