By james art 
The Irvine City Council will convene a special meeting at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 5, to discuss its recent $20 million approval to purchase property on Armstrong Avenue for a new homeless shelter.
The deal is not complete, but is scheduled to close escrow on Tuesday, City Manager Oliver Chee said Monday.
The council approved the purchase of two adjacent lots, 17572 and 17622 Armstrong Ave., for the shelter at its last meeting on Oct. 22.
At the time, Councilman Mike Carroll was the lone vote against the purchase, expressing concern about greenlighting a real estate deal of this magnitude without the plan going before any city commissions and without additional options for residents and owners of businesses in the Irvine business complex to comment.
Now Mayor Farah Khan seems to be having second thoughts.
Hahn called Tuesday’s meeting in a Nov. 4 memo in which she expressed concerns to Chee about the lack of community outreach and the size of the purchase, which she has already voted to approve.
“We have noticed that no campaigning has been done that was not done prior to council action to purchase 17572 and 17622 Armstrong Avenue,” she wrote. “I understand petitions have been signed, meetings have been held and various statements have been made since the council’s action.”
Khan did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment on the new information that had come to her attention.
Chan Tran, a resident of the Irvine business complex, said his condominium association, which represents people living in three complexes near the proposed shelter, raised concerns with the city about the lack of community input.
Since Oct. 22, he said his HOA has met with city officials, including Chi and Irvine Police Chief Michael Kent, and that in the past few days more than 100 residents of an Irvine business complex have signed a petition to voice their displeasure of the contribution level had to meet on the project.
“We have a growing community of young parents and families here,” Tran said. “We’re just trying to bring attention to the changing demographics. We just want transparency.”
At the Oct. 22 meeting, city staff made it clear to the council that they would vote on an item that had not gone before city committees or through the usual planning and community outreach process.
“There is an opportunity to acquire property,” Chee told the council on Oct. 22. “We have a small window where we have to get in on the deal before the end of the month if we want to take advantage of this opportunity.”
Only Carroll disputed this claim.
“In terms of the sense of urgency that the staff came up with, I really don’t buy it because we’re well capitalized and we can find other places potentially if we somehow lose this property,” Carroll said before the Oct. 22 vote. “But the idea that we’re going to spend $20 million on a vote at 8:45 p.m. with no one in the room except for a few public speakers worries me.”