Valley Roadrunner Online Search

NOVEMBER 11

Meeting between Accretive’s Goodson and planning group no love fest

You could feel the love Monday night between the VC planning group and the Accretive Group’s Randy Goodson.
Not really.
Goodson, who is president of the development group, and members of the planning group bristled at each other and threw barbs as the group moved—albeit reluctantly—to form a subcommittee to review Accretive’s request to the County for a PAA (plan amendment application) to study a development of more than 1,700 units along Old Hwy 395 & I-15 within the 45-day timeframe given by the County.
That subcommittee (made up of planning group members Oliver Smith and Ann Quinley, residents Nancy Layne and Sandy Smith, and Design Review Board Chairman Lael Montgomery) will meet Nov. 18, 6 p.m. at the multipurpose room of VC Elementary School. It will present its findings at a special meeting of the planning group on Nov. 30, probably at VC Community Hall.
Once the group turns in its recommendation to Dept. of Planning & Land Use (DPLU) that department’s director, Eric Gibson, can approve or disapprove of its going forward. Either decision is appealable to the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.
The tense meeting contrasted to the virtual love-in the group had earlier that evening with the Weston Town Center’s proponents, which planners enthusiastically approved and one might say almost fell over themselves in endorsing (see story, A1).
Goodson complained that he just wanted the same treatment, to which planner Rich Rudolf replied, “The difference between your project and the Weston project is that it has been around since 2003, and they just filed their PAA in October after working with us for several years.”
Goodson retorted, “Yes, the planning group has been working with them since 2003, but when I asked for a point of contact, the planning group voted ten to two not to have a point of contact with me. Mr. Rudolf told us to come back in five years. We have filed a PAA and we’d like the planning group to review it.”
Several planners complained that the 45 days to make recommendations for the PAA wasn’t enough. The group’s chairman, Oliver Smith, asked for an extension. Goodson said he previously asked to make presentations and was told, “Come back in five years.”
He said the series of workshops and open houses he has held for several months were just as good for public review as making a presentation to the planning group.
Goodson was also unhappy that he was not allowed to make a presentation on the proposal that night. When he asked if he would be allowed to, Smith answered sharply, “No you will not!”
Goodson later told The Roadrunner, “I thought I was invited to make a presentation!”
However, he did comment to the planners: “Our PAA proposes to downzone the land [in the villages] and transfer them to the freeway. This would take a proposed plan of three thousand units down to fifteen hundred units.” He noted that in all four models created by the County they “create significant unmitigatable traffic.”
“You can take some units from the historic Valley Center area and move them west and then all of the roads work. The County asked us for a regional concept plan on to how a western node could be developed.”
He said they came up with a “raw canvass.” “We need to work with Dept. of Public Works, to start this process. We need the ability to work with the community.”
He emphasized that if the PAA goes forward, “This is not approval. It gives us the ability to spend a lot of money and then bring an application to this board for a vote.”
Several audience members spoke before the vote.
Larry Glavinic said he thought the project should be looked at as a way of relieving VC’s projected failing roads if the density that the County proposes is approved.
“We need to rethink this thing and they [Accretive] might be a solution. We will be very sorry if you don’t at least take a look at it.”
Shawneen & Terrell Burdick both spoke in favor of it, saying that it presented another option for preventing road gridlock.
Mark Larson said the community was fortunate to be considered for a major project in this economy. “I think we should look at it and the negatives. I think we should look at it rather than delaying it several years,” he said.
Patsy Fritz said Goodson has never talked with the water district about water or sewer. “I don’t know how you would have a sustainable community. I would like one of the subcommittee members to work with the water district and discuss sanitation. The property currently only supports two-hundred units and would go to over sixteen hundred units. That’s a big increase. These people have to go the water district and work out the issues. They can’t continue avoiding it.”
Carol Prime asked Goodson not to be “condescending” to the planners. “There are quite a few educated people on the planning group, some of them professional. Some have been on the planning group long enough to have doctorates in the field. Please do not be condescending to them, and please do not go around this group. You are not going to get a lot of sympathy from people if you insult them and try to go around them. It’s better to listen to the community, otherwise you are going to have the fight of your life.”
A resident of the Old Hwy 395 area, Jack Fox, said he was tired of the threat of fire used as an excuse for this development. “I am highly insulted that this planning group has spent years and years and years on the community plan. It is a large kick in the teeth by a developer and the county DPLU to provide avenues such as a PAA for developers to use to get in the back door and present a project that should have been proposed nine years ago when the general plan first came about.”
Nancy Layne called for the rhetoric to cool. “There is a lot of misunderstanding. There needs to be some stepping away from ‘you did this’ and ‘you did that.’ You should give the man a fair hearing, instead of insulting him back.”
* * *
Note: Since Goodson twice said he was told by Rudolf to “come back in five years,” when he asked to present his project, The Roadrunner asked Rudolf to clarify what he said to Goodson.
Rudolf wrote, “At the earlier meeting when Mr. Goodson stated he did not have a project, and that the 3000-home 3-A SPA (that the Planning Group opposed, and the Board of Supervisors removed from the GPU Referral map in July 2008) was not HIS Project, I stated that I thought  it was premature for the planning group to form a subcommittee when there was no ‘project’ to review.
“My particular experience with the Otay Ranch Project in Chula Vista (then the largest Planning Project ever proposed in California), was that the developer had involved the community, and particularly immediate neighbors, for several years (I think five) as advisors to the developer (not to the official reviewing governmental bodies), before filing his applications. I suggested that might be a process Mr. Goodson might want to emulate, because the public review (by the city and county advisory bodies, and the joint Planning Commissions) went much smoother for the developer, because the community people supported it, because they had helped design it.”

Copyright© 2009, The Valley Roadrunner