Irvine voters were originally expected to decide this November whether the Oak Creek Golf Course should stay as open space or be turned into a massive new housing development.
But now, that timeline is unclear, and it could be 2026 before voters weigh in.
At a City Council meeting Tuesday night, July 22, Council members stopped short of finalizing any ballot language, choosing instead to ask the city attorney to come back in August with two possible versions of a ballot measure: one to protect open space citywide and another that would separately ask voters about the fate of the golf course.
It’s a move that could push the latter vote — which has already drawn hundreds of written comments from residents both for and against the plan — until next year, largely because of state environmental laws.
“If we’re asking voters to actually change the land use designation for Oak Creek,” City Attorney Jeff Melching said, “that probably requires CEQA compliance and therefore probably couldn’t be moved forward for 12–18 months.”
CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, requires cities to study the environmental impact of land use changes before making major decisions. That means the original idea of a November 2025 vote is likely off the table.
At issue is whether the city should allow the Irvine Company to replace the 193-acre golf course with a new residential village that includes 3,100 housing units, a school, parks and other public spaces or preserve the land in its current form as open space. In exchange for redeveloping the golf course, the Irvine Company said it would give the city 315 acres of open space in northern Irvine and give up control of its agricultural operations on another 565 acres of city-owned orchards.
What’s made the proposal so controversial is that Oak Creek was included in a 1988 voter-approved initiative that designated the golf course — and other areas — as open space. The initiative was designed to preserve open space by allowing development in some places in exchange for public ownership of others.
While privately owned by the Irvine Company, the golf course has long been considered protected open space under the initiative.
The City Council has spent months debating what should happen to the Oak Creek Golf Course.
But the staff report that came before the Council Tuesday recommended a ballot measure focused on protecting open space across the city, while exempting the golf course from those protections if Irvine receives the 315 acres of open space being offered in return.
That didn’t sit well with many of the several dozen residents who spoke at the meeting, or with Councilmember Kathleen Treseder.
“I do think that we should have a ballot measure if we’re going to contemplate allowing development of the Oak Creek Golf Course,” she said. “Now, I thought based on our past Council discussion that if we had a draft ballot measure that it would plainly ask about what the voters’ wishes are for the fate of the Oak Creek Golf Course.”
Treseder, who supports housing on the golf course if it includes significant long-term affordable units, said she believed the Council had previously agreed to put the Oak Creek question directly to voters in plain language.
“I mean, if you just look at the title of the agenda item, it’s ‘Open Space Preservation Ballot Measure.’ If I were a voter, not understanding the context of why this was brought forward, and I saw this, I would think, ‘Great, we want to preserve open space.’ I could see why that would be compelling for a lot of people if they’re not in ‘the know’ of why we’re doing this,” she said.
“I don’t think this is right,” Treseder said. “Even though I very much want this development to happen, I cannot in good conscience do that by potentially misleading the voters.”
The plan laid out in Tuesday’s staff report proposed a ballot measure that would expand protections for thousands of acres of open space across Irvine. The measure would formally add areas, including Turtle Rock Open Space and the Gateway Preserve, to the city’s protected lands list, along with lands that aren’t officially designated as open space but are operated as publicly owned parks, including Portola Springs Community Park and Quail Hill Community Park.
But the staff proposal included a key exception: The voter approval requirement would not apply to the privately owned Oak Creek Golf Course, as long as the city received the 315-acre land swap from the Irvine Company.
“Oak Creek Golf Course was different,” Melching said. “It was a unique piece of property. It was the only one, as far as I can tell, in the open space initiative that was retained by the Irvine Company.”
Some residents saw the proposal as a bait-and-switch. Dozens turned out to speak, some accusing city leaders of trying to advance a ballot measure that appeared to protect open space while sidestepping the one parcel actively at risk.
Michael LeBlanc, former senior vice president for the Irvine Company who worked with the city on the 1988 initiative, called for “a clear vote” on whether to preserve or redevelop the golf course.
“What I had in mind was an up and down vote on whether or not the voters want to change the preservation land use category … and replace it with a housing development,” LeBlanc said.
Mayor Larry Agran agreed that the public should decide.
“The sentiment is unanimous that we need to allow the voters to weigh in on this, which is consistent with (the 1988 initiative) and its intent when we put it on the ballot,” Agran said.
Melching said the city could ask voters directly whether they want to change Oak Creek’s land use but warned that doing so would likely trigger environmental review under CEQA, delaying any ballot measure until mid-2026 at best.
The vote would be “presented two ways,” Melching said. “One would be a vote up or down on actually changing the land use in the General Plan … The other option would be to remove the voter protection requirement, which would leave it to the City Council’s discretion to change the General Plan designation at some point in the future if it chooses to do so.”
The issue will return to the council on Aug. 12.