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Before we discuss tomorrow’s Irvine City Council vote about a Veterans Cemetery in the Great Park — a vote that, as predicted long ago here and elsewhere, the ad hoc committee has tried to delay until it was defeated — can we get real for a moment and discuss what it’s really about?
THIS is what it’s about.
By the way, it’s FIVE POINT and it’s fellow opponents of a Great Park Veterans Cemetery who are saying that we can’t build one because these houses need to be sold to investors from Communist China. All WE’RE doing is illustrating it!
Nate Silver’s 538.com blog, of all places, covered the story beautifully a week and a half ago. Investors want to get money out of the People’s Republic of China — and the developer Five Point, with the aid of Irvine Mayor Steven Choi, Irvine Councilwoman Christina Shea, and maybe, maybe, “ought to know better” Irvine Councilmember Jeffrey Lalloway — wants to get a huge chunk of that money.
The aspirations of U.S. veterans and their loved ones are getting in the way — and so they must be quashed. Nicely quashed, inadvertently (or so they’d like it to seem) quashed — but quashed real good. Some of that money, after all, will turn into campaign contributions — enough, opponents of a Great Park Veterans Cemetery hope, to overwhelm to shame and disgust at the city’s council choosing filthy lucre over the hopes and dreams of veterans.
It’s such bad politics that you know that the financial benefits to opponents must be huge. Choi and Shea are past their sell-by dates, politically, but Lalloway isn’t — and that’s why he, the guy who PROMISED last March that he would bring a Veterans Cemetery to the Great Park but is now widely believed to be wavering at best, may still, belatedly, come through.
But that’s tomorrow’s story; for now, let’s stick to today’s. Here’s how 538.com puts it: Chinese nationals are investing in the U.S. because of (1) a favorable exchange rate between the yuan and the dollar, (2) easily access to credit, and (3) demand for secure investments — although anyone who was reading the Irvine Housing Blog around 2008-2009, when Irvine was the epicenter of the upscale market housing bust, may need to lie down for a while after reading that until their eyes stop rolling.
According to the National Realtors Association (NAR) survey, the Chinese spent $22 billion on U.S. housing in the 12 months through March — 72 percent more than they spent the year before. Among foreign buyers, Canadians ranked highest in the share of transactions, at 19 percent, but the Chinese bought by far the most expensive homes, with a median price of over half a million dollars. That’s compared to the $213,000 spent by the average Canadian buyer of U.S. real estate, $141,000 spent by the average Mexican, and about $200,000 spent by the average American.
More than any other foreign nationals tracked by the real estate website Trulia, Chinese buyers prefer homes in cities to vacation homes. Where? The West Coast, mostly: Seattle, Palo Alto, San Jose, Los Angeles — and Orange County.
But why buy here at all?
They’re looking for a safe investment. When NAR surveyed more than 3,500 realtors about their international clients, it asked about the most important factor influencing purchases. Most cited were statements like “the U.S. is viewed as a good” or “profitable” investment. But the idea that U.S. real estate is a “secure investment” had risen the most — to 25 percent in 2014, up from 20 percent in 2009.
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According to a report by JPMorgan cited in an April Bloomberg story, China’s ratio of household credit to GDP has risen enormously — to 187 percent in 2012 from 105 percent in 2000. Overall credit extended to the private sector as a percentage of GDP rose to 134 percent in 2012 from 113 percent in 2005, according to World Bank data.
They’re benefiting from a stronger yuan. Exchange rate movements over the last several years have made U.S. assets more appealing to Chinese buyers. As the U.S. dollar has depreciated against the yuan — giving the Chinese more buying power — China’s rise in U.S. real estate purchases has moved in lockstep. Seventy-five percent of realtors surveyed by NAR said the exchange rate was an important factor in their clients’ decision to buy.They’re dealing with a possible housing bubble at home. After years of strong gains, by several measures China’s housing market appears to be cooling. The possibly overvalued market at home — along with increasing regulatory constraints on real estate purchases — might be encouraging the Chinese to buy overseas.
So, they are pricing Americans out of the upper end of housing markets — like, say, the housing in the Great Park. But hey, that’s capitalism! Other would-be buyers will buy a little less expensive homes, and the people they supplant will buy homes a little less expensive than that, and so on down the line, through buyers, through renters, until some people can’t find housing at all. But that’s OK, because Irvine doesn’t mind if those people sleep in the streets — so long as it’s in Victorville.
Here’s what strikes me about this story: if it’s true — and there’s every indication that it is true — then these buyers will buy these homes anyway, regardless of feng shui, because the homes are good investments and the buyers want to get their money out of China, which is experiencing a housing bubble!
So, if that’s true — if the whole Five Point story about spooking investors with the proximity to U.S. military fallen is just made up — then what is the reason that Five Point (and Choi, and Shea, and maybe Lalloway) don’t want the honor of a Veterans Cemetery putting the “Great” in “Great Park”?
Maybe there’s something else that they want to go there — like luxury hotels catering to foreign tourists. And if that’s true, then my feeling is: to hell with them. How about you — especially you Irvine voters?
Irvine’s Council meeting, where this will all get hashed out, takes place tomorrow, July 22. Festivities (and I mean that literally in this case; veterans and OCEA are going to entertain and feed you) begin at 5:00. Parking may be a tad scarce, so plan accordingly.
um, I assume that developers on both sides just want to keep selling off bits of the Great Park for development. Pretty much everything built out there could be turned into condos and tilt-up, and few would notice or care.
But paving over a veteran’s cemetery is a tad harder to do, the developers want that stopped.
If by “both sides” you mean Agran’s and Choi’s (for lack of a better symbol), how do you square your view with the fact that Agran has been one of the main people promoting the Veterans Cemetery? If it’s harder to pave that over, and if he’s shilling for developers too, then isn’t he … well, not really helping their cause? Right now, it seems like only one side is pushing for capitulation to developers.
I am away from my notes, but briefly: When Larry was in charge, he was on the record opposing a cemetery at the Great Park, Including a ?2009? vote. The Veterans Cemetery bill was introduced in January by the Fullerton legislator ?Sharon Quirk Silva? . Larry had several high profile opportunities to promote the cemetery, including interviews on Larry Mantle’s show and Rick Reiff’s program, but he didn’t say a word in support of our veterans.
When he finally did get around to doing the right thing, he put the Veteran’s Cemetery issue on the city council agenda at the last possible moment in a classic agenda ambush. It appears Democratic power broker ?Frank Barbaro? organized the hit, as he made an unusual appearance at that city council meeting.
If you’re interested, I can go through my notes and get this more accurate. Larry needs to peel off one vote from the Shea faction to get the cemetery approved, but Larry is maximally antagonizing the Shea faction.
I have spoken in front of the council in support of this cemetery. I don’t care about the politics, so long as this Veteran’s Cemetery gets built. But don’t delude yourself about the character or motivation of the current drowning pol desperately hoping veterans will save his neck.
Agran was completely committed to the Great Park’s “Master Plan” up until the time that he was pushed into the minority. Bolstered by people within the Forde & Mollrich orbit, who I think did him a great disservice extended over a long time, he thought that as the economy improve he could still make it happen.
The council majority’s startling and precipitous capitulation to Five Point, which is the impediment to the Veterans Cemetery proposal, finally seemed to change his mind. Now that he couldn’t get what he thought was best for the Great Park — and regardless of other criticisms you’ve made of him I have no doubt of his and Beth Krom’s sincerity in that respect, although I think that some around him were simply being cynical — he now wanted to get the best deal that he could.
In mid-December, at the Holiday Party of the OC Labor Federation, which I attended, Sharon Quirk-Silva let people know that she had just (either that morning or the previous day) been appointed the Chair of the Assembly Veteran’s Committee. She was enthusiastic about doing something big and bold with that position. It was suggested to her that she talk to Agran and Krom, who were still smarting over the ruination of the Great Park Master Plan, about the possibility of an Orange County Veterans Cemetery, which a loosely organized group of veterans had been promoting, in one instance since 1999.
Unlike in 2009, when he had been pursuing a different plan, Agran was now immediately interested. This would make at least PART of the Great Park “Great” — and it would create a civic destination that would serve the public (and Irvine’s reputation) better than sports parks, a golf course, and luxury mansions would do.
Within the next six weeks, Quirk-Silva began working with the group “OC Veterans Memorial Park” Committee. (I became involved with the committee at the end of January, though I haven’t been attending meetings since April or May for lack of time.) The timing of the initial consideration of the agenda was worked out far in advance; whoever told you otherwise is lying. Frank Barbaro, to my knowledge, had nothing to do with it except (I’d suspect) perhaps appearing at the meeting as the honorable Emissary from Forde & Mollrich.
Agran has been dealing on occasion for the past six months with a group of veterans in OCVMP, largely Republican, who were wary of him at the outset. My sense is that their respect for his hard work and advocacy on this issue has grown greatly over that period. (I’ve seen that behind-closed-doors advocacy myself; it’s damned impressive.) Many of them hold out hope that one of the Republicans will, well, act like you’d expect a Republican to act when it comes to supporting the military, and I too hope that one of them (probably Lalloway, if anyone) will come forward to take a share of the credit. But unless you’ve talked to the veterans about Agran’s role in getting the proposal this far, you have missed what is probably the most important source for testing your thesis.
I get that you want to slag Agran; maybe your motives are pure, maybe less so. (Seems to me like you DO “care about the politics.”) But even if his motive is to turn a defeat over the Great Park into a partial victory — so what? As political motivations go, that’s a lot more respectable than many. The apparent desire among some Republicans to block the Veterans Cemetery proposal so that they can deny Quirk-Silva a victory that might aid her in her race against Young Kim, for example, has got to be at least 10 times as despicable, wouldn’t you say?
Regardless, I think that your description sells him short. This wasn’t his first choice of cause — the Great Park’s becoming “the Central Park of the West” was — but it is a cause that he clearly, CLEARLY, believes in. (Have you ever spoken to him about it?) If it “saves his neck,” it will only be because the shocking — and I seriously mean shocking — opposition of Choi, Shea, and maybe Lalloway will have given him that opening. But I think that he’d have been quite happy with a 5-0 vote, bipartisan shared credit, and a substantive achievement.
“Agran was completely committed to the Great Park’s “Master Plan”
Which included being on the record, including a public vote, against cemeteries at the Great Park.
By your own chronology, Larry only got motivated on the issue AFTER he lost the ability to actually make it happen.
Curious, that.
“Curious, that.”
The man’s cynicism is boundless.
Agran is into the Park fiasco up to his eyeballs and always was. His apologists will now try to paint him as the victim of his evil advisors (the old Good King, Evil Advisor cliche) but since Agran got the evil advisors no-bid contracts worth tens of millions, there is no escape for the Dear Leader of Irvine.
It’s quite remarkable how a cunning politician and can pull and persuade strings, all the while tap dancing around the edge of the law, directing huge amounts of public money to his cronies, screwing things up titanically, wasting millions, and still pretend everything is okay and that he is just the victim of political persecution. That takes a whole lotta gall, and a little troop of apologists who can’t admit the obvious.
Agran’s former hand-selected stooges are now in the process of ratting him out big time. Things are about to get a lot worse for Larry before they get better.
The only thing that I find mind-boggling about the Great Park saga is the huge no-bid contract to Forde & Mollrich, the one that Chumley contorts himself to defend on the grounds (I exaggerate only slightly) that PR people should run the world.
I have a theory about why that happened, but that can wait until I have more time — among other things, after tonight’s council meetings.
Yes, he was against substantial alterations to the master plan, including a veterans cemetery, IN 2009, WHEN THE MASTER PLAN WAS STILL VIABLE.
That does not mean that he was hostile to the idea of a veterans cemetery in principle, but that he was devoted to the duly approved plan. Deviate from the plan and you have no idea what you might get — oops, well, Irvine did deviate, so I guess now we do know.
He wasn’t motivated on the issue until Sharon Quirk-Silva talked to him about it and he realize that it was possible. Since then, he has pushed hard (and well) to make it happen.
What part of this you consider sinister is itself curious. It you are engaged to a woman in 2009, and she breaks an engagement with you in 2013, is it “curious” if you begin dating another women in 2014? Situations change, people adapt — even politicians. Curious that you don’t get it.
“Why Speculators from Communist China are Snapping Up U.S. Real Estate”
“Communist speculators” – my new favorite oxymoron.
Speculators FROM. Can you wrap your head around the most common of prepositions?
Although it’s true there’s not much that’s really Communist about China any more except its totalitarian government.
Which word do you dispute, oxy?
*So Agran wanted a Skate Ranch and an Ice Hockey Stadium! So he wanted a London
circle…..too! He just didn’t want anything that would require solice or a moment of reflection…….like a refective pool maybe….or a take-off on the Garden of Gitsenime!
he didn’t want a Garden of Gits?
Nor even a refective pool.
*Meanwhile, back on the prime issue – there are lots and lots of Chinese Billionaires, Millionaires and 1% ers……that are looking for bargain basement property. In China, they can only own their home and one investment property. That means, tally ho the fox……they are looking for property they can sit on for say 20 years and use as a pseudo Time Share, a couple of times a year. Heck,
they can even offer it up to their close friends and other family members. You want to stay on the clift about Dana Point Harbor….in a recently foreclosed piece of property? We are not talking ground zero Detroit or Riverside & San Bernardino counties….either. Hey, they are looking hard at Ventura, Oxnard and Simi Valley…..too! Horse country…..where every Chinese can live out his fantasy of riding Trigger or Champion – the Wonder Horse! Even Duncan Reynaldos – Diablo or Panchos – Loco! Yeaaahaaaaaawww!
*Didn’t we say, when in doubt, consult a…dictionary? For God’s Almighty’s sake, consult….
*Yeah….you have the corner on Fictionary! Absolutely! Positively! Without a shadow of a ……..