Irvine council holds study session on 198 climate-action projects, asks staff for cost and impact analysis

Irvine — City staff on April 8 presented a study-session briefing to the Irvine City Council on the draft Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAP), reviewing 198 proposed projects and actions and asking councilmembers for direction on which measures to prioritize and how staff should prepare cost and emissions-impact analyses.

The presentation outlined the CAP’s structure, noted transportation (51%) and building energy (37%) together represent about 88% of the city’s greenhouse-gas emissions, and described which measures are complete, in progress or not yet started. Staff said more than half of the actions are either complete or underway, but councilmembers pressed for fiscal estimates, clear prioritization and measurable GHG reductions tied to major proposals such as expanding the Irvine Connect transit pilot, an urban tree-planting program and a residential rooftop solar-and-battery initiative.

The study session matters because the CAP is intended as Irvine’s roadmap to meet the city’s current carbon-neutrality target of 2040. Councilmembers said they want a prioritized implementation plan with capital-cost estimates and projected emissions reductions before taking any adoption vote.

Luis Estevez, public works and sustainability staff lead, told the council the CAP is a non-regulatory roadmap that pairs greenhouse-gas inventories with recommended actions, and that the draft contains 198 program actions grouped into six sectors: building energy; transportation and land use; resilience, green economy and carbon sequestration; off-road vehicles and equipment; solid waste; and water and wastewater. "The CAP does not create policy requirements. It simply serves as a roadmap by recommending actions that are the best fit for Irvine to help us reduce our emissions," Estevez said.

Estevez and Melissa Yu, the city’s sustainability manager, described the city’s outreach over the last two years: more than 30 targeted workshops, student engagement, translated surveys that drew thousands of comments and broader CAP promotion that staff said reached nearly 200,000 stakeholders. The presentation also summarized the status of the 198 measures: staff reported 29 actions complete, 68 in progress, eight listed as reference actions and 93 not yet started.

Staff explained the CAP assumed enrollment in Orange County Power Authority’s (OCPA) 100% renewable choice in earlier modeling, but after the council in December moved Irvine customers to OCPA’s basic-choice service (47% renewable as the default), the draft will need modifications or additional measures to close the emissions gap caused by that change. From OCPA’s published portfolios, staff said the agency’s basic-choice tier in 2025 was modeled as roughly 75% carbon-free because it included a share of nuclear generation in its mix; nonetheless the city will have to pursue more or intensified measures to maintain the 2040 neutrality target under the 47% baseline.

Councilmembers repeatedly asked staff and the consultant to attach explicit capital-cost estimates and GHG-reduction calculations to priority measures. Mayor Egren said he expects the council to schedule a vote on a final CAP around the time the city adopts its budget, and asked staff to return a cost-and-implementation analysis. "We want measurable progress, at what cost, over what period of time," he said.

Vice Mayor Mai and other councilmembers emphasized the need to distinguish measures that the city can pursue unilaterally from those that apply to other entities in the city, notably the University of California, Irvine. Staff clarified that many regulatory measures tied to building permits or transportation do not apply to UCI’s campus, because the university operates under different permitting and utility arrangements; councilmembers noted coordination with UCI could be useful but the campus’s emissions and actions are largely outside city regulatory reach.

Councilmember Carroll pressed for near-term accounting of taxpayer dollars already spent on CAP-related projects. Staff said the city can compile an order-of-magnitude summary of costs for measures already deployed, citing examples during the session: the urban-forest master-plan contract (roughly $500,000 allocated), operation of Irvine Connect (about $2.5 million per year), and a proposed Quail Hill replanting project budgeted at about $260,000 per year over 10 years.

Councilmembers singled out three large-scale priorities they want quantified: expanded public transit (an enlarged Irvine Connect program), an aggressive urban-tree program (tens of thousands of trees in the near term), and a residential rooftop solar-plus-battery scale-up (an example target discussed was about 5,000 households per year). Staff and the consultant agreed to produce carbon-reduction estimates and costings for those options.

Public testimony at the study session included the Sustainability Commission chair, Kev Abazajian, who urged the council to weigh both the capital cost and the carbon impact of every measure and to prioritize high-impact, cost-effective items. "Community choice energy has been identified as a prime way to tackle climate action in a very short time scale by getting us to renewable, and carbon-free electricity," Abazajian said. Tomas Castro of Climate Action Campaign urged the council to agendize and adopt the CAP at a formal council meeting rather than delay it further.

Don Geller, chair of the Finance Commission, recommended that the council solicit commissioners’ technical reviews — finance, planning and transportation commissions — and suggested a joint session to review feasibility and cost. Staff confirmed the Sustainability Commission will review the CAP at its next meeting and said staff can coordinate joint sessions with other commissions if council directs.

Councilmembers raised equity and feasibility concerns for specific measures, including mandates that would affect private homeowners but not entities such as UCI, and measures that could raise costs for residents or businesses. Several councilmembers urged caution about measures that would require major private expenditures and said those proposals should be considered alongside potential funding mechanisms, rebates or grants.

On status and next steps, staff said a near-term cost analysis already underway covers high-priority measures; the city will expand that work if the council requests cost estimates and implementation plans for the full set of CAP measures, including projected costs to residents and businesses. The Sustainability Commission is scheduled to review the CAP the next day; the mayor said he expects a formal council vote on a draft CAP by the time the budget is adopted.

The study session concluded with no formal action on the CAP. The council adjourned the special meeting and reconvened for its regular council meeting at 4 p.m. Vice Mayor Mai moved to adjourn; Councilmember Liu seconded the motion, and the vote was unanimous.

What the session did not do: staff did not present a finalized cost or emissions-reduction workbook for each of the 198 measures, and the council did not adopt or amend the CAP during the study session. Instead, councilmembers asked staff to return with prioritized measures, capital-cost estimates, implementation timelines and quantifiable GHG impacts for the major options discussed.