KEEP THE WOODBRIDGE VILLAGE CENTER, IRVINE!

1) A central place for cell towers. Badly needed, and will pay well, but no one wants one nearby, so put them there where no one lives, works or shops much now. Perhaps at the top of the lake bridges or gazebos.

2) An Airstream community. Most parts of the country, but not California, have an upscale RV park in which there are homes with garages big enough and tall enough to park an RV. The size and accommodations on the rest of such homes vary in such parks, with some being little more than a screen house with a laundry room and bath, and others being more like mansions. I'd suggest some of each in the same community, as exists in such places as the North Texas Airstream Community South of Dallas. That way there's no eyesore factor, and still handles folks with varying needs for space and varying budgets. At the very least, there should be a housing option able to take a tall Mercedes Benz RV in its garage, since there's no place else in Irvine one can be legally parked overnight except at Irvine RV Storage, and it can't be stayed in overnight there.

3) Micro homes, such as a San Diego company makes. These are luxurious, but only a few hundred square feet in size. Frankly, I think this is all the generation now graduating from college will be able to afford for decades to come.

4) A walkable and bikeable development. The Wall Street Journal recently featured such a place in Colorado in its Mansions section. The houses were the usual huge monstrosities, but with great walking and biking amenities. I'd suggest doing the same, without the McMansions. Make the goal be to have a neighborhood that holds lots of new people without increasing automobile traffic at all. That could look a lot like one we've seen in Bloomington IN, but doesn't have to be only for old folks. It could also be very green, and designed to use very little water, which would please environmentalists.

Hopefully, unlike that one, it would include shops in easy walking distance for such things as buying fresh fruits and vegetables, bread and meat daily - like a 7-11, but healthy and not car-oriented.

5) Multi-generational homes. There was one in a recent OC Register homes section that is intentionally designed to include two related families, living near each other on the same lot, but still separate enough for individual lives. This might be something like combining a regular Irvine home and a microhome on the same lot. I understand CA law now requires this to be permitted, so why not build for it intentionally? It would handle either a second young family that can't afford a big house yet, or a second older family that no longer needs a big house.

In chatting with a retired Irvine architect, he pointed out part of the appeal of Irvine is that it is high density housing that doesn't FEEL high density due to careful positioning of each home for privacy from neighbors and best use of its limited lot size.

I notice that most of the candidates for council are anti-high-density. That would have locked us out of moving here, along with most everyone else not in the top 5% of income and wealth. Personally, I wouldn't like an Irvine filled with the McMansions that were becoming common in Arlington Heights IL where we used to live, yet that is about all that seems to be being built now other than apartment buildings.

With CA in the tough shape it is, and with prospects for a good economy for anyone other than the 1% ever dimmer, there's much to be said for doing something positive now about ever-growing debt that our kids' and grandkids' generation will otherwise have to pay back.