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Irvine City Council members backed out of a proposed homeless shelter by canceling buying two properties – minutes before escrow would’ve closed – on Election Day.
Just two weeks earlier, city council members voted 4-1 in favor of moving ahead with the purchase, but ultimately voted 3-2 to nix the deal at a special meeting on Tuesday morning,
They had less than an hour to hear from residents and make a decision before the land deal would’ve been finalized at 12:30 p.m.
The deciding vote was Councilwoman Tammy Kim, who abruptly walked into the meeting after the council’s discussion, voted to end the deal, and walked out without listening to the remainder of the meeting.
“What the hell was that?” said Mayor Farrah Khan, picked up by a hot mic shortly after Kim left.
In an interview after leaving city hall, Kim said she liked the deal, but she didn’t have time to “combat the misinformation” around it because she was running for mayor, noting she missed almost the entire meeting because she was out speaking with voters.
“I don’t know whose supporters are going around saying somehow I’m the one forcing this transaction to take place and that I’m somehow behind it and somehow I’m profiting in some way,” Kim said. “That’s simply not true, I don’t have time to deal with this.”
Yet her colleagues, Councilman Larry Agran, who’s running for mayor, and Councilman Mike Carroll, who’s running for reelection, were there for the whole meeting.
Despite the cancellation, the city will still lose a $1 million nonrefundable deposit they’d already put down to purchase the land, which would have cost around $18.5 million.
The vote capped off a week of turmoil at city hall amidst questions from residents over what the shelter would be doing and why the city was buying the property.
The concerns started after residents living near the site heard about the proposed shelter, which was not reviewed by any of the city commissions and was approved by city leaders on Oct. 22.
[Read: Irvine Officials Approve Plans to Develop Homeless Shelter]
Those residents then sent a series of emails to city council members with concerns about the deal, and showed up to Tuesday’s special meeting, with over three dozen speakers raising concerns over the deal.
The meeting was called by Khan, who raised a series of concerns over transparency.
“It comes down to transparency, and we want to make sure we are as transparent as possible when making our decisions,” Khan said. “The system itself is very much needed … but this particular property and how we’ve come to today is what’s in question.”
City Manager Oliver Chi insisted the building would not function like a traditional shelter, saying people would have to be invited and that it was designed to fast track Irvine residents who’ve fallen on hard times into affordable housing.
“It’s intended to be an affordable housing program to connect Irvine residents in crisis with a significant place to stabilize,” Chi said. “That individual can continue moving through an interconnected set of affordable housing.”
Despite that, residents raised some concerns about a new homeless program going in near so many apartment complexes, with others questioning why the city was buying the land from a real estate firm instead of the land’s owner.
Chi said the land was being sold to the real estate firm for around $14.2 million, which then would sell the property to the city for $18.5 million.
Khan and Carroll said city staff failed to properly inform the council and the public about the details of the deal.
“This is a faulty process,” Carroll said. “The hard work was not anywhere close to done.”
But they said they still support moving forward with homeless programs at other locations, along with Councilman Larry Agran, who highlighted how they could still buy the property and use it for something other than a homeless shelter.
Agran failed to get enough council support to buy the properties anyways and use them for something else.
“I’m very open to this land not being used for a homeless shelter,” Agran said before he voted against the deal’s cancellation. “This land could be used for something else and we could locate the bridge facility you’re talking about elsewhere in the city.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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