Support for Irvine' s public schools runs so broad and so deep that when the City Council voted to transfer millions of dollars to the school district the only argument was over who would get the credit.  Yet, Larry Agran's ever more expensive vision for the Great Park is creating tremendous problems for the school planners, straining this vital relationship and putting the future quality of Irvine schools in doubt.

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The fundamental problem is that the cost of the Great Park is ballooning.  The original cost was claimed to be  $353 million, was quickly revised to $600 million, officially currently stands at $1.1 Billion, but is actually over $1.6 Billion. 

Where will this money come from?  The glib answer is "sell more houses."   The official "overlay one" that one can find on the OCGP web site calls for 3,000 units in the Lennar's Great Park Neighborhoods.  However, revenue from those 3,000 units won't begin to meet the costs for current budget numbers.  So Larry, Lennar, and his OCGP allies have been pitching the idea of developing 9,000 units instead - but without increasing the amount spent on building new schools.

Needless to say, the School Board is not enamored with Larry's vision.

The currently planned Community Funding District (ie "Mello-Roos") for the Great Park Neighborhoods is already slated to be a hefty 2% and to be used mostly for infrastructure, so there is little left for the schools to tax.  However, those additional 6,000 units would push Irvine into needing a fifth high school --- an expensive proposition.

Worse, Lennar wants to change the historical development procedure. In the past The Irvine Corporation would negotiate with the the School District before building began, after which the schools and neighborhoods would be built in a single phase.  Lennar instead wants to build houses a few at time and send the new students...wherever.  Such a development pattern is much harder on existing schools which must absorb the additional students while waiting for the new neighborhoods to grow enough to support new schools.

In short, Larry Agran's inability to plan a funding source commensurate with his "vision" for the Great Park is causing great strains for Irvine's school system

note: The astute reader will note the lack of attributions in this post.  I have talked to people on both sides of negotiations.  No one wants to speak publicly.  The school board needs the city's money to survive the budget crisis, and the Great Park folks don't want to discuss that they haven't figured out how to pay for all this "vision."