The Irvine City Council will convene a special meeting at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 5, to discuss its recent $20 million approval to purchase property on Armstrong Avenue for a new homeless shelter.

The deal is not complete, but is scheduled to close escrow on Tuesday, City Manager Oliver Chi said Monday.

The council approved the purchase of two adjacent lots, 17572 and 17622 Armstrong Ave., for the shelter at its last meeting on Oct. 22.

At that time, Councilmember Mike Carroll was the only vote against the purchase, expressing concern about greenlighting a real estate transaction of that magnitude without the plan going before any city commission and without additional opportunities for residents and business owners in the Irvine Business Complex to comment.

Now, Mayor Farrah Khan seems to be having second thoughts.

Khan called for Tuesday’s meeting in a memo dated Nov. 4 in which she expressed concerns to Chi about the lack of community outreach and the size of the purchase that she already voted to approve.

“It has come to our attention that outreach which prior to the council action to purchase 17572 and 17622 Armstrong Avenue was not done,” she wrote. “Since the council action, I understand petitions have been signed, meetings have been held, and various representations have been made.”

Khan did not respond immediately Monday to a request for comment on what new information had come to her attention.

Chan Tran, a resident of the Irvine Business Complex, said his condominium association, which represents people living in three complexes near the proposed shelter, raised concerns with the city about the lack of community input.

Since Oct. 22, he said his HOA has met with city officials, including Chi and Irvine Police Chief Michael Kent, and that in the last several days more than 100 Irvine Business Complex residents have signed a petition to express dissatisfaction with the level of input they’ve had to date on the project.

“We have a growing community of young parents and families here,” Tran said. “We’re just trying to draw attention to the changing demographics. We just want transparency.”

At the Oct. 22 meeting, city staff clearly expressed to the council that they would be voting on an item that had not gone before city committees or through the usual planning and community outreach process.

“There’s an opportunity to acquire property,” Chi told the council on Oct. 22. “We have a small window where we have to engage in the transaction before the end of the month if we want to take advantage of that opportunity.”

Only Carroll challenged that assertion.

“With regard to the sense of urgency that the staff has come up with, I don’t really buy it because we are well capitalized and we can find other places potentially if we somehow lose this property,” Carroll said before the Oct. 22 vote. “But the idea that we’re going to spend $20 million on a vote at 8:45 p.m. with nobody in the room but a few public speakers is concerning to me.”