IRVINE : New Plan OKd for Chancellor’s Home

A key UC Irvine faculty committee has endorsed the university’s modified proposal to build a chancellor’s residence and entertainment center on a hilltop of rare coastal sage scrub that is home to a threatened species of songbird, university officials said this week.

The executive committee of the UC Irvine Academic Senate voted 20 to 1 this week to approve the new plan, which calls for moving the $3-million University House more than 60 feet and an access road to the bluff about 300 feet to the north.

University planning officials revised drawings for the site after objections surfaced among students and faculty members, including biologists who noted that the environmental firm hired by the campus said the plan would do unavoidable harm to gnatcatchers known to nest there. Gnatcatchers have become so rare in Southern California that they are expected to be added to the federal list of endangered species.

The revised plan was approved by the land-use subcommittee of the Academic Senate on a 7-3 vote in mid-December. The subcommittee forwarded its recommendation to the Academic Senate’s 26-member executive committee. A minority recommendation, calling for a study of alternative sites, was presented by student government representatives at this week’s meeting.

Academic Senate spokeswoman Garland Parton would not identify the person who cast the dissenting vote, but she indicated that the opposition was based on procedural grounds, not on the substance of the proposal. The majority, however, strongly urged that university officials strive to minimize the destructive impacts of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, which will cut through coastal sage just south of the proposed University House property.

Parton said the issue will not be taken up by the full Academic Senate.

University spokeswoman Karen Young said the proposal is expected to go before the University of California Board of Regents in March.