When Parisa Yazdani and several of her neighbors at the Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine came across signs posted around their homes in late January, notifying them of a street demolition scheduled for a couple of days later, they were surprised.
The street in question is Terrapin, which runs from Great Park Boulevard to Cadence. A 300-foot section of the street, situated between Great Park Boulevard and Carmine in the Parasol Park neighborhood, was set to be removed starting Jan. 26 as part of developer FivePoint’s plan to add over 700 new residential units to the Great Park Neighborhood.
The Parasol Park neighbors, as well as residents in other nearby neighborhoods, took to social media to ask questions, pose concerns and alert other neighbors, Yazadani said. Eventually, enough people came together to draw a sizable backlash against the demolition, she said.
“I wasn’t very sure the level of concern initially, and then we started talking to more residents, and that was when it became very clear that people were not happy,” said Yazdani, who co-leads a residents’ club within the homeowners’ association.
The street demolition had been “buried inside” a 464-page traffic evaluation from last year, she said, which riled up a lot of residents who felt that there hadn’t been direct, adequate outreach by Irvine or FivePoint notifying them of the planned removal of parts of Terrapin.
Yazdani and several other residents contacted city staff, the mayor and several councilmembers — a day before demolition was scheduled to begin.
The city agreed to have FivePoint delay the demolition, Yazdani said, and a townhall with city officials and residents was convened at the Parasol Park clubhouse.
“There was almost 100 people there roughly,” she said. “There were people outside that couldn’t get in, in fact.”
Residents and city staff came together for a second town hall last week, on Feb. 5, and the city agreed to keep Terrapin open.
The…
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