One of the most important principals that guide master planning on The Irvine Ranch can be summed up in one word: balance. When it comes to developing new residential neighborhoods, this means providing a wide range of housing types to meet residents' needs, and that is what we are planning to do in East Orange.

The new residential neighborhoods will also help address the need in job-rich Orange County to achieve a better balance between jobs and housing. The county's current jobs-to-housing ratio is 1.46 jobs for every house, and that gap is expected to widen because housing development is not keeping pace with job growth.

The strong interest we are already seeing from current residents of Orange who have indicated a desire to move to the new East Orange communities demonstrates the need to provide more housing options locally.

Hundreds of Orange residents have signed our interest list for this project. In fact, based on the number of inquiries we've received, we anticipate that current Orange residents will comprise more than 50 percent of the homebuyers in these new neighborhoods.

This development will provide the first substantial new housing in Orange in a number of years. It will provide opportunities for people at all the various stages of the housing cycle. For example, as those who are ready for move-up housing relocate to the new East Orange communities, they create older and lower-cost housing inventory in Orange for working families.

The new residential neighborhoods east of Orange are planned to include a total of about 4,000 homes on 2,000 acres. The Irvine Community Development Company is planning to create four separate and distinct neighborhoods. Santiago Hills II will be a 1,596-home community on 494 acres between Irvine Regional Park and Peter's Canyon Regional Park. Area 1 plans include about 1,000 homes on the bluff top east of SR 241. Area 2, overlooking Irvine Lake, will feature about 1,200 homes with spectacular views of the ridgelines and mountains of East Orange.