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.”
