El Toro Homes on the Agenda for Supervisors

Orange County Supervisor Chuck Smith will ask his colleagues today to consider selling more than 850 vacant military homes on the closed El Toro Marine base as transitional living and affordable housing.

The request will come on the same day as an expected announcement by the U.S. Navy regarding the base’s future and one week after the Board of Supervisors voted to allow Irvine to annex the 4,700-acre base.

A spokesman from Smith’s office did not know if the supervisor--a longtime supporter of a commercial airport at the former base--has enough votes for approval. The proposal could add a wrinkle to Irvine’s bid to take over the base from the Navy and implement its plans for the site.

“My thoughts are that we are very close to solving what has been tearing up Orange County for years,” said Irvine Councilman Mike Ward.

“Please, give Irvine a shot,” he said. “It sounds like the board is trying to put another roadblock up here.”

Smith said he is adamant that the Navy understands, regardless of its decision on the base, that the county needs affordable housing for low-income people and transitional housing for the homeless and young adults leaving foster care.

“I guess you can say I don’t have any warm feelings that Irvine is going to go for an affordable housing and transitional living plan for El Toro,” Smith said. “I want to at least have the Navy know what we want.”

Under Smith’s proposal, county staff would be directed to begin discussions with the Navy and the Department of Housing and Urban Development over the sale of 852 housing units north of Irvine Boulevard.

Smith wants the county to find a way to make interim and long-term housing programs at El Toro compatible with Measure W, the voter-approved initiative that killed the possibility of a commercial airport there.

The area includes a 273-acre housing tract with two-, three- and four-bedroom homes formerly occupied by Marine officers.

In his memo, Smith said he would like to see a speedy decision.

“I believe the board has done a considerable amount of talking and jawboning about low-income and affordable housing,” Smith wrote. “It is time for the board to take action.”

Irvine has proposed putting faculty housing in the same area for Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine, which would add affordable housing to their plan, city officials said.

Irvine Councilman Chris Mears said the timing of the supervisor’s idea seemed a bit odd given that the board approved the city’s plan last week.

Mears noted that Smith was part of the board’s three-member pro-airport majority that had delayed the base housing idea because of fears that if people moved onto the base, they would vote to be annexed to Irvine.

In the city’s plan, 165 housing units are already designated as transitional and affordable, Mears said. “We’re going to honor that and to that extent we’re sympathetic with what Supervisor Smith is [saying].”

But Mears added that until the Navy announces its decision on the disposal of El Toro, such talk “is only conversation.”

“Until the Navy tells us what it wants to do with the [former] base, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.

Board Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad, who was the swing vote for last week’s annexation approval, said she needs answers to her many questions about Smith’s plan before she could endorse it.

In the past month, Smith and Supervisor Tom Wilson have visited former military bases in California that have initiated affordable housing programs.

Wilson does not want to ruin Irvine’s chances for annexation. But he may vote to have Irvine and the county work together on a plan to resolve how to convert military housing into civilian use, Wilson’s spokeswoman said.