The City’s high percentage of green space and its environmental leadership has been part of Irvine’s foundation since its earliest planning. The City’s Master Plan called for parks, open space, walking trails, and bike paths to be woven throughout neighborhoods. An impressive 28% of Irvine’s land is dedicated to parks and green spaces, which is nearly double the national average. And 96% of Irvine residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park.
Mayor Larry Agran recently explained why he’s such a tree enthusiast: “Like most people, I love trees. They ask so little from us, and yet they give us so much. They provide shade and cool our City on hot days; they help clean and oxygenate the air we breathe; they sequester huge amounts of carbon in our fight against global warming. And trees are just so beautiful to behold, offering a kind of psychological relief in a stressful world.” The Mayor’s Urban Forest Master Plan, adopted by the City Council last October, will add another 60,000 carefully selected trees in the coming years to expand Irvine’s tree canopy coverage.
The City’s other impressive green project includes the establishment of a new 600-acre nature preserve in North Irvine that will connect to the already-popular Jeffrey Open Space Trail. Through a remarkable land deal, Irvine’s largest industrial polluter has been shut down, and in its place, the Gateway Preserve is being created. Throughout the process, the Mayor has thanked “the citizens of Irvine — especially our North Irvine neighbors — who organized themselves and relentlessly insisted and acted on the belief that their city government could and must find a way to stop the pollution and restore the land. And that’s what we’re doing.”…