Other than the bulldozing, nothing's happening yet.
This is a view from the south end at Somerset looking north. That's the back of Santa Fe Plaza at the other end of the field.
A few months ago, there were a lot of these "Scale back the park" signs along Rubenstein on the west edge and Somerset to the south. Now only a couple remain along Somerset. I think the web site referenced on the signs is defunct.
Judging from the signs, I thought these people on Somerset were screwed. Their street is the only current access to the property from the south, and their quiet little neighborhood would get a ton of traffic. It turns out the plan is to run a new access road behind the neighborhood, next to the freeway. You can see the site plan here. There will be a 6' concrete wall around the park to keep the park riff-raff out of the 'poser district. The only other access will be from the north, just west of Santa Fe Plaza.
The site plan is essentially unchanged since 2002-2003. As Councilman Dan Dalager likes to say, the devil is in the details. The entrance off of Santa Fe Drive looks to be very narrow. Is it wide enough to accommodate a 30-foot roadway with sidewalks to conform to city standards and make it ADA compliant? I've heard the city is asking for more easement with the Vons renovation. But what about Rite-Aid? It is not part of the remodel. The city looked at making the park entrance through the middle of the shopping center using the existing entrance. This was too expensive.
ReplyDeleteThe southeast entrance depends on I-5 widening and/or the realignment of the Mackinnon bridge. The city did engineering studies around 2002-2003 for a realigned bridge with five lanes and a cost of $6 million, but this was dropped as too costly.
This park, even in the Phase I stage, will be expensive to build and maintain. In the budget projections for fiscal year 2009-2010, there was no funding allocated through fiscal year 2014-2015 for building the park.
So what's going on? The three councilmen have some 'splainin' to do. The Planning Commission rejected the park plan, the City's own Parks and Rec Department appealed, and the majority of the three men upheld this appeal, with the Councilwomen Houlihan and Barth dissenting.
So how are the three men going to explain this to the public?
Thank you for your feedback. It really motivated me.
ReplyDeleteProperty Development
Build the dang park already. Stupid NIMBYs complaining about everything.
ReplyDelete