Enter the UHills Townhome Name Game!
One part of the ongoing construction in Area 10 will include a community of 120 rental townhomes. ICHA is soliciting naming suggestions for this new community. Although the final decision will be made by ICHA, they have magnanimously asked HRB for a list of suggestions, and we thought the best approach would be to pass the buck to you!
So, put your thinking caps on. Throw ideas across your dinner tables. And then send your best ones to us. HRB will pare down the list to a few favorites, and pass them on. Who knows? One of those suggestions might just be the right symbolic mixture of beige and taupe to pass muster with the Authority, and be permanently emblazoned on signs at the future corner of Coltrane and Cervantes.
To encourage you to strain your creative muscle, HRB will be offering various token prizes for names that make it onto our short-list, and for various clever but regrettably unusable entries that do not. Awards may or may not include “Most Pretentious”, “Most Obscure Literary Reference”, “Flat-out Funniest”, “Most Irvine”… We will be judging entries anonymously, and will choose a suitable prize structure based on the nature of entries received. If things like “what the rules are” or “what the prizes are” or “who wins” matter to you, then you are taking this way too seriously, and are hereby disqualified from participating.
HRB members won’t be entering ideas, ourselves, though, because that wouldn’t be fair. Not that we don’t have ideas. We totally do. Really. We just know that you will definitely have better ones. (No pressure.)
Be further warned: if we love love love your idea so much that it is our absolute favorite, and we pass it along to ICHA, and they DON’T use it, then we are going to need volunteers willing to chain themselves to the Community Center entrance.
FAQs
What if multiple people suggest the same awesome name? Well, then we will either split the prize in question among the winners, or pick one entrant at random, or bake extra cookies so there are enough to go around.
How will we pick? Well, we’ll probably do something like: make a list of all entries (with submitter names removed), and each pick a handful of favorites, and then put those on a list which we’ll then vote on. But we may need to adjust the process if, for example, we find it necessary to consolidate slightly different but nearly identical suggestions. We’ll do our best to be fair, but it’s going to be pretty ad hoc, so bear with us, and remember, this is supposed to be fun!
How many times can you enter? You may submit multiple suggestions, but don’t go overboard. Three should be enough. You might get away with four. Five is definitely too many.
How old do you have to be? Your current age is just fine.
Where do you have to live? To be eligible for an HRB-awarded Name Game prize, you must be a University Hills resident. Anonymous entries will be considered, but we can’t give you a prize if we don’t know who you are.
How do I enter? Read the Background Information below, and then follow the link to our questionnaire. Entries submitted by other means will not be considered. Do not inundate us with email. Entries must be received by 9:00am on Monday, August 4, 2014. [EDIT: Extended to Thursday, August 7, 9am!]
What if my entry doesn’t win? Sorry about that. It’s a subjective thing. We probably just have lousy taste. But we hope to conduct similar shenanigans when the time comes to name the new pool, and the new park, so please do try again!
Background Information (What ICHA Says They are Looking For)
Your naming suggestions should be representative of or have some significance to the University Hills community, or reflect some aspect of local history, geography or architecture. It should also be relatively easy to spell and pronounce. A few words about what the name means, and its significance, would be helpful.
Here are some facts about the project and our existing rental communities:
· The new project has a Spanish themed architectural design – 2 and 3 story townhomes
· The cross streets are named Coltrane Court and Cervantes Court
· Cervantes Court will run through the new community
· Existing rental communities within University Hills are named:
o Las Lomas – Spanish for hills
o Gabrielino –a Native American group (also known as Tongva) who inhabited the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands.
o Santiago – Santiago Peak is the southern mountain of Orange County’s Saddleback formation and the highest point in Orange County. The 4 Santiago floor plans (Avalon, Balboa, Capistrano, Dana) are named for things you can see from the peak.
For sketches and a map of Area 10, see:
How to Enter
To submit a suggested name, please visit:
Thank you for playing!