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Irvine City Council to consider a zoning change for Oak Creek Golf Course

April 13, 2026

The Irvine City Council is set to consider this week a zoning change that would help bring into view the Irvine Co.’s vision to replace Oak Creek Golf Course with a 50-acre nature park and residential development.

An earlier version of proposed development at the property drew opposition from community members who are arguing the company’s plans would breach a 1988 voter-approved initiative that designated the golf course and other areas in the city as open space.

Zoning for Oak Creek Golf Course requires the site to be “retained and operated as a public golf course,” a staff report to council members ahead of Tuesday’s council meeting said. The zoning change now proposed would provide an “optional process for the city to consider a public nature park and trail system on a portion of Oak Creek Golf Course as an alternative to the existing zoning ordinance requirement.”

The Irvine Co. is soliciting feedback from residents for the park proposal and “we are grateful for the thousands of residents who shared their ideas to create the city’s largest nature park,” Irvine Co. Senior Vice President Jeff Davis said. “Their vision for meadows, woodlands, bridges and wildlife viewing areas would make the park one of the most unique in the region.”

The park would complete the Jeffrey Open Space Trail and create a fluid pathway between the Limestone Canyon Nature Preserve and the Quail Hill Nature Preserve.

Renderings show plans for a botanic and pollinator garden that would extend outward from a planned nature center. (Courtesy of Irvine Company)

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Renderings show plans for a botanic and pollinator garden that would extend outward from a planned nature center. (Courtesy of Irvine Company)

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The remainder of the 193-acre, privately owned golf course would support a housing component, with the number of units yet to be determined, Irvine Co. officials said. But plans call for less housing than the 3,100-home village that the company sought council approval for last year; the council stopped short of approving those plans after residents brought up the 1988 voter-approved measure.

The citizen-led Committee to Protect All Irvine Open Space is again raising that concern, and its members said they are resolved to pack the council chambers and make clear their opposition to the proposed zoning amendment.

The group was pursuing a ballot initiative to reaffirm the 1988 measure and require voter approval for any developments on land deemed “open space.” It filed in January to start that process and collect the 18,000 valid signatures of registered voters that would be needed to force the public vote.

But an error in publishing the petition as required has ended that effort to make the November ballot, said Rolf Parkes, a longtime Irvine resident and spokesperson for the committee.

“Because of that, all the thousands of signatures that we gathered could not be used,” he said. “Due to our time constraints, we could not start all over again to get our final petitions turned in by May 6, 2026.”

Petition or not, Parkes said it doesn’t dampen the group’s conviction.

“We are still doing everything we can, and we’ll have to see whether we’re going to have to take this to court,” he said, adding concerns about a new housing development’s impacts on traffic.

“I was there when the open space preservation provisions were adopted by way of the ballot measure I had a hand in putting together,” Irvine Mayor Larry Agran said. And binding or not, Agran said he wanted to keep the measure’s intent alive and for a council-approved proposal to go before voters.

The Irvine Co. “has the right to make an application,” Agran said, and Tuesday’s vote would “create an opportunity for the Irvine Co. to pursue their application to the next step, which would be an environmental report.”

That report, if the council approves the zoning change, could take another six months to complete, he added.

Irvine City Council to consider a zoning change for Oak Creek Golf Course Orange County Register

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Irvine City Council to consider a zoning change for Oak Creek Golf Course

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