In the U-T, Jonathan Horn covers the reversion to 2008 plans to avoid further environmental review.
Teresa Barth comments in her e-mail newsletter:
Jonathan Horn got the story right. I said (and I do) support the park changes, especially the larger skatepark. Jerome's motion was to go back to the previously approved plan and that is what I voted against.
I am still not sure if what happen was procedurally correct. The agenda item was to approve or deny the appeal NOT to direct staff to do something else.
This puts the park construction back at least 6 months to a year. Staff & the consultant now have to start all over again with construction drawings, grading plans, etc. before this can go out to bid. More waste of time and money.
While I think it's true that this will require some cost and delay to re-do the plans, the costs of another round of court cases and environmental reviews would surely have been higher. So now we go forward with plans that nobody likes because we're trying to push this broken-down jalopy across the finish line before anybody can place any more obstacles in the way.
The Hall Park situation is a mess for a number of reasons. Here are my top three:
1) A regional sports park with 90-foot stadium lights is totally out of character for the west Cardiff community. Call the 'poser district people NIMBYs all you want, but they are right. Their neighborhoods were not made for Carlsbad traffic, and Cardiff sunsets will be ruined if the lights go in.
2) The city vastly overpaid for the property and now is having trouble finding funds to either build or maintain the park.
3) The cost of legal and environmental review and compliance in California is Too Damn High. The city is getting a taste of what it's like for businesses to try to operate in California, except businesses don't get to use taxpayer money to fight this stuff.
Actually, it was the City Planning Director who made comments on the CalTrans I5 widening EIR about not siting sensitive receptors (children) within the 500-foot buffer zone. It is quite an eye opener to read that the City admits to the dangers of the toxic air pollution from the freeway. The Planning Director writes much more on the subject and most of the comments could be considered damning to the City's EIR approved in 2008.
ReplyDeleteBasically, the City tells CalTrans that their EIR is insufficient, lacking, and in need of updated information on the air pollution. Yet, the City (in the Substantial Conformance Decision) tells its own residents that no additional EIR data is needed.
Councilman Stocks didn't want that new information presented to the public. Hence, his preemptive strike of reverting to the plan of 2008 was presented even before the appeal hearing was opened by the Mayor.
From the patch article:
ReplyDelete“Tonight [the council] decided to knowingly build a park where kids are going to be breathing in toxic air pollution,” Briggs said after his presentation to the panel. “They did not have to do this, but they went ahead and did it anyway.”
The City Planning Director made comments on the CalTrans I5 widening EIR about not siting sensitive receptors (children) within the 500-foot buffer zone. It is quite an eye opener to read that the City admits to the dangers of the toxic air pollution from the freeway. The Planning Director writes much more on the subject and most of the comments could be considered damning to the City's EIR approved in 2008.
ReplyDeleteBasically, the City tells CalTrans that their EIR is insufficient, lacking, and in need of updated information on the air pollution. Yet, the City (in the Substantial Conformance Decision) tells its own residents that no additional EIR data is needed.
The City Planning Director made comments on the CalTrans I5 widening EIR about not siting sensitive receptors (children) within the 500-foot buffer zone. The City admits to the dangers of the toxic air pollution from the freeway. The Planning Director writes much more on the subject and most of the comments could be considered contrary to the City's EIR approved in 2008.
ReplyDeleteBasically, the City tells CalTrans that their EIR is insufficient, lacking, and in need of updated information on the air pollution. Yet, the City (in the Substantial Conformance Decision) tells its own residents that no additional EIR data is needed.
Many of you commenting have NOT been here for the entire decade-long battle over this park; Bonde, Barth, Westbrook, Wolfe, MALLORY; and a dozen others have done everything they can to stop this park and it was clear Wednesday that Barth's plan was to get this appeal rolling to hold up the construction of the park until she can run Tony 'The Finger' Kranz again in 2012 and then with Houlihan's help, kill the park once and for all.
ReplyDeleteUp to this point (her newsletter message excerpted above)I thought there was a chance of Barth being a little more honest than the average pol.
No more.
12:33,
ReplyDeleteTrue, I wasn't here in the early days. And those people may be against any park at all.
But why has the council majority insisted on this regional sports park with stadium lights when the majority of the citizens would prefer a community park?
It's not all or nothing. We could have had a very nice community park there with something for everyone.
12:33 p.m.,
ReplyDeleteThe adverse heath effects and air pollution concerns were voiced by the City. Read the Planning Director's letter to Caltrans. The city is concerned about the air pollution (including the particulate matter) from the freeway. From the City's letter:
The analysis does not address the potential for impacts to additional receptors to due the widening of the I-5 corridor, which will result in travel lanes placed from 48-73 feet closer to existing land uses in the vicinity of the freeway. The California Air Resources Board, in their Air Quality and Land Use Handbook, recommend that sensitive receptors not be sited within 500 feet of a freeway due to potential adverse health effects.
(Sensitive receptors means children, people with breathing problems, etc.)
More from the letter:
Recent studies show a link between childhood asthma incidence and exposure to particulates, NOx, and black carbon generated from traffic.
As long as this park is being built for private business sports teams who have priority over other people who want to use the facilities I am opposed to this park. These teams charge the kids to play and we are building this park for them not the kids. If it were for the kids it would be much more kid friendly with other activities as well. We could have a nice park with sports facilities that do not require that games be played at night. What is so wrong about people opposing something that will drastically change their lives? What is so wrong about citizens complaining that this park does not serve their needs at all. What is so wrong about people expressing their views? What is wrong is that certain members of our city council are not the slightest bit interested in what Encinitas citizens are saying. I say it is time to put this thing to a vote and settle this once and for all.
ReplyDeleteGod, so much NIMBY whining here. Stadium lights? Get real. Ruin the sunsets? Come on. The council voted, YEARS AGO, to build the park. It's been endless delay tactics since then - Barth should be ashamed of herself.
ReplyDeleteDear Banksy,
ReplyDeleteThe council voted 3-2 to reject the recomendations of the Planning Commission who heard two days of public testimony, read all the letters and emails from the community and read the EIR. This is how 'the council voted to build the planned regional sports park.
Lighting planas presented by Musco lighting representative: light output equal to half the Rose Bowl, light spillage equal to 80 full moons and strobe lights on top of 90 foot stadium light poles. These poles would block established view corridors of the sunset, ocean and horizon views from an entire hillside of homes east of I 5.
The city did not want to do an EIR on the greenhouse property and voted 3-2 to not do an EIR. Citizens had to sue the city to address the contaminated soil issues. Now, as I understand, the city is attempting to get the County to relax the scope of toxic clean up for a cheaper less involved plan. This is what Stocks is refering to when he says that the County is holding things up. The county is only asking for what is required.
Bansky, what of this is not true?
Citizens that want a toxic free community park are labeled "evil NIMBYs, I do not agree.
Completely agree with Anonymous @ 07:29am
ReplyDelete