The Lake Forest City Council voted unanimously on Nov. 18 to approve a cooperative agreement with the City of Irvine resolving fair-share obligations tied to each city’s developer-fee transportation mitigation programs.

Tran Tran, Lake Forest’s traffic engineering manager, summarized the threefold agreement: finalize fair-share contributions between the cities, close out four shared intersection projects and update the city’s 2025–2027 budget to reflect the revenue and expenditures. "Staff is proposing a cooperative agreement between the cities of Lake Forest and the city of Irvine relating to our respective transportation mitigation programs," Tran said.

Tran reported that based on Irvine’s update, three intersections located in Lake Forest generated a fair-share contribution of $301,706 to Lake Forest. Conversely, an Alton/Irvine Boulevard project in Irvine resulted in a $676,214 contribution owed to Irvine. Tran said that because the three Lake Forest intersections are substantially complete, those funds could be redistributed within Lake Forest’s mitigation program to address remaining projects and administrative costs.

Council members questioned how broadly Irvine could redistribute its contribution and who would bear cost overruns on multi-year projects. Tran said the funds must remain within each program’s originally identified intersections and that if a project later increases in cost, the jurisdiction responsible for the project would cover overruns. "If the project goes up in cost, that's on the city of Irvine in that example," Tran said.

Council authorized the mayor and city clerk to execute the agreement and adopt the related budget resolution. Staff will update the budget to reflect Irvine’s contribution and reallocate funds within Lake Forest’s mitigation program as projects are closed out.

The agreement is intended to close out legacy obligations created when each mitigation program was established and to provide a clear path to reassign completed-project funds to remaining intersections and administrative needs.