So it's no surprise that "Smart Growth" didn't appear in the Planning Department's Vision for Encinitas.
Staff report on Housing Element:
VisionWe were curious, though, about that odd and undefined phrase "complete neighborhoods." What the heck is a "complete neighborhood?" I would venture to say most Encinitans believe their neighborhoods are perfectly complete.
A city with diverse housing opportunities in complete neighborhoods within our five communities embracing these unique places, supporting economic sustainability and preserving the small town, coastal character of Encinitas.
Let's go to Portlandia for the answer:
The term “complete neighborhood” refers to a neighborhood where one has safe and convenient access to the goods and services needed in daily life. This includes a variety of housing options, grocery stores and other commercial services, quality public schools, public open spaces and recreational facilities, affordable active transportation options and civic amenities. An important element of a complete neighborhood is that it is built at a walkable and bikeable human scale, and meets the needs of people of all ages and abilities.Oh, you mean SMART GROWTH!!!
Smart growth also includes opening new businesses and creating new jobs for those that could walk to work, bike to work, or take mass transit from their home to their job. If Encinitas continues the trend of opening bar establishments, this does not speak too highly of what we have to look forward to. Not all of us want to work at a bar. I hope this council changes its direction soon.
ReplyDelete"Complete neighborhoods" mean they stamp us all with the same design and "improvements." Like "complete streets," Masih Maher's raison d'etre, it's a plan to force (in the complete streets example) "sidewalks, curbs, and gutters" city-wide. It fits with Vina's personal vision to stamp out any references to the separate communities, something he apparently likes to enforce inside the walls of city hall.
ReplyDeleteWatch out too for the generic term "economic sustainability." The city will justify anything if they can just get their mitts on sales tax revenue. Expect all kinds of Prop A undermining goodness in the rush to the money. It's all aimed at bringing in revenue to cover up city mismanagement and the council doesn't care how they make that happen.
ReplyDeleteThis blog proposes a commie under every bed or as chicken little said ( THE SKY IS FALLING )
ReplyDelete8:16- Actually I think this blog does many positive things, such as inform, educate, get our daily dose of humor and laughter, as well as vent. More venting, less real fighting. So, personally I think we owe Wc, whoever he or she is, a great deal of gratitude. Thanks Wc.
ReplyDeleteA Smart City Council would fire a stupid Vina.
ReplyDeleteIt is obvious that we don't have a Smart City Council. They are all ill equipped to be sitting in the big chairs wasting OUR money.
DeleteVina's not stupid: he's cunning and knows exactly what he's doing. It's the council that's letting us down by following Vina off a cliff and taking the rest of us with them, on our dime.
Delete8:16 plenty of evidence that the city works actively against residents. What position in the city do you hold?
ReplyDelete"Smart Growth" means forcing people into high-density development near mass transit and shops.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, WC engages in political hackery by playing word games. Does anyone believe that forced relocation is the issue? WC, don't treat your readers like idiots. Maybe a few are, but you insult the rest of us when you pander to them.
Smart Growth is a valid topic, with plenty to discuss without silly false arguments.
Oh come on now.
Delete"Forcing people into high-density development" doesn't mean forced relocation.
A density bonus project here... an upzoning to apartment buildings there... mixed use on El Camino... permitting and economic incentives making traditional single-family homes with decent yards infeasible...
None of this is "forced relocation" of individuals (though eminent domain is a favorite tool of Smart Growthers in some areas, and it is forced relocation of individuals), but it all adds up to forcing people into high-density development in the aggregate.
So you are saying the people living in these projects have been "forced" (your word) to live there?
DeleteLook, I'm for preserving community character, and too much of anything is a bad thing. But having a town that supports a variety of income levels, a variety of ages, a variety of choices isn't a bad thing.
I hope my kids can live here if they want after college (just not in my house--winky emoticon). The trick is to have those options without fundamentally altering a beautiful and cool town.
Move slowly; move carefully; think; and challenge everything.
We've already got many apartment complexes and a few trailer parks, plus condos all over the place. They're not cheap because everybody wants to live here. Build more? They still won't be cheap.
DeleteYou're never going to have cheap housing in a highly desirable beach community where everybody wants to live.
We can easily make Encinitas crowded, but we can never make it cheap.
See Manhattan Beach.
Delete7:17 the trick is for your kids to earn what ever quality of life their effort and works affords them and to make their life choices accordingly.
DeleteKelptocrats seeking to take our money to pay for their mismanagement know that there code words to hoodwink the public have been exposed as the frauds they are.
Sustainable? The only thing the council has been sustaining in Encinitas is hihg salaries and pensions for staff, contracts for consultans who push propaganda and fail to represent residents like MIG and Norby and paying back developers- Harwood and Meyers.
The trick is each person earns his own way.
Not government tells everyone where and how they should live under the guise of Smart Growth, susaintable housing, walkability ot other.
We recently celebrated D-Day, the liberation from tyranny, oppression and facism.
Remember the words of Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan- "earn it"
WC, you avoided the original question: who exactly is being "forced" (your word) to live in any type of housing?
DeleteIf you can show me a live example of a citizen who is being compelled against their will to live somewhere, then I'm 100% on your side.
No I didn't. Limiting choice by imposing high-density development and restricting traditional residences has the effect of "forcing people into high-density development" en masse. It does not mean that individuals are forcibly relocated at gunpoint.
DeleteI'm sorry if that's beyond your comprehension.
7:33 said "Not government tells everyone where and how they should live under the guise of Smart Growth, susaintable housing, walkability ot other."
DeleteSo, to be logically consistent, you are against Prop A, and zoning of any sort, right? After all, the current zoning code is a government mechanism to tell us where and how we can live.
The truth is, you do support government imposition of rules on development, just a different set of rules.
7:44,
DeleteThe difference is that people chose to live here based on existing community character and known zoning.
Now the Smart Growthers want to transform Encinitas into something entirely different that what residents all came here for.
7:44 said "Limiting choice by imposing high-density development and restricting traditional residences"
DeleteWeak.
Questions: Do we have fewer or more "traditional residences" than we did five years ago? Ten?
If we go onto Zillow, can you find "traditional residences," as well as apartments, condos, twin homes, rooms for rent, mobile homes?
What data sources are you using, and how do you quantify your claim that "traditional residences" are being restricted?
What's your solution if we made you Emperor? Would you freeze all development? Would you exclusively support development of detached single-family homes with yards?
If alternatives of choice are severely limited or non-existent, then one is "forced" or "compelled" to choose from what is available. For example, if one wants a soft drink sweetened with natural cane sugar in a glass bottle, instead of one sweetened with GMO corn syrup in an aluminum can, one is forced to buy the corn syrup drink in in the can. Unless, of course, one wants to search out the rare store that carries the imported product at a much higher price or make a trip to Mexico and look for it there. The market "forces" an individual to buy what is really not wanted The same thing happens in a "smart growth" market.
DeleteIt's silly to look for a single individual to prove a point.The exception doesn't prove the rule. It's the overall market that rules here.
7:44 -
DeleteEncinitas has current zoning, as do many other citites and towns. Residents bought into Encinitas based on the zoning requirments.
Now government wants to change zoning to promote stack and pack to benefit a lucky few at the expense of taxpayers
(some say to make it easier to control population, limit travel and reduce freedom- it is an interesting argument given the new proposed vehicle mileage tax California is discussing. IT seems Barth and Shaffer would have us be chinese peasants riding bikes while they get car allowances. Other argumetns include that Stack and Pack is forced government income equality- see the destruction of community charachter in Sol Beach as an example- way to go Dave Roberts. Yet others say stack and pack is about changing voting demographics by moving those dependent upon government entitlements into neighborhoods where self reliance now reigns)
I am for proetecting the zoning that was present when I bought. You want to take away the property rights of all to reward a few buy giving them upzones-
A few like Teramar properties in Carlsbad who bought trader joe's fr $78M and then got appointed to the ERAC committee that recommended 5 story building.
Or giving a hand out todevelopers like Mike Paesk another ERAC member - and buildiers who want new rights to build a 'transit village' at the strawberry fields in Cardiff- destroying open space and vegatation that fights global warming by building stack and pack
Your argument sounds like high density lawyer and bar representative Marco Gonzales.
Development that makes a mockery of affordability by handing out high-density building permits like candy in order to bring revenue into a broke city is not welcome here by most residents.
DeleteTheories about who should be on foot, bicycle, public transportation have no place in a city's "strategy" when a) our decision-makers don't live by said theories and b) do not align with why people moved here should not be forced - yes, forced - on an unwilling populace. Ever read Barth's and Shaffer's "newsletters?" Chock full of links to why "smart" this and "smart" that, all aimed at convincing us "smart growth" and "sustainable living" are what we really want...they have their theories, Gaspar, Muir, and Kranz have their handlers to keep happy, and Vina has his revenue to worry about.
WC, I'm the provocateur here. Believe it or not, we are probably closer on this issue than you think. Let me offer an olive branch, and an explanation.
DeleteI moved here because I liked the way things were. That included the variety of people here. I like that my kids get to grow up in a place that is safe, with decent schools, but at the same time, they are not insulated in a bubble of affluent sameness. My kids have both gone through the DLI program--dual language (Spanish) immersion. My kids get to make friends with other kids who have family struggles bigger than their iPhone running out of batteries. I like that my kids will grow up with an appreciation for the things I work hard to provide them--a grounding.
That's a huge part of why I came here, and it's changing. Gentrification is driving Encinitas toward a sad affluent sameness. The DLI program is struggling because one by one, the old neighborhoods are being nuked and replaced with bigger, more expensive "traditional homes."
Change is happening, but it's not the one you fear. Gentrification is the dominant trend. I see some Smart Growth concepts as a potential attenuating counterbalance.
Will Encinitas ever have more "cheap" housing? Nah. It's going, going, gone. But we can have some cheapER housing--anything less than the median price of a single family detached home contributes to a community with a broader spectrum of beliefs, experiences, incomes, backgrounds.
That's a part of Encinitas I'm for preserving.
Peace.
8:24,
DeleteTotally with you on that one. Gentrification is a bummer.
I blame the Fed's easy-money policies, which create asset bubbles and expand income inequality. This creates a lot of asset-bubble rich people to come in and buy up our beloved beach towns.
http://www.wcvarones.com/2011/01/robert-shiller-on-rising-inequality-in.html
Thanks for the dialogue!
Perhaps for ethnic diversity ALL low income housing should go to one race sorely lacking in Encinitas. Other than the hispanic population it is about as white as snow around here.
DeleteFinal thought.
DeleteOn this board, it seems to me "community character" is sometimes exclusively defined as a zoning issue. I disagree with that idea. Here's an example to show why:
On one residential lot in town, at this very moment, a long-time blue-collar local is selling a 1950s 1200 square foot ranch house. Within months, the house and mature Jacaranda out front will be scraped to bare dirt, and construction will begin on a 4000 square foot brown Tuscan with red tile roof that looks exactly like the one next door. The new family that moves in will look just like their neighbors and drive the same car. Now multiply what happened on that one lot by 100, by 1000, by 5000. All of this happens without any change to zoning, but is the community character changing?
I'm not trying to disparage the Tuscan or the ranch. Not picking sides on the local versus the new family. In my view, what makes Encinitas cool and defines our community character is the variety. Variety in age and style of architecture. Variety between the five communities. Variety in the demographics of people who live here.
In my view, zoning is important, but we have over-emphasized its ability to protect individual buildings (it doesn't) and the much broader issue of community character.
I'll end with questions: What defines community character for you? Is it just a zoning issue? What makes Encinitas cool and unique? Is it just brick, mortar, setbacks and building heights? What about the people? Would it be a good thing to just let gentrification run its course toward milk (homogenized, white)? If not, what can we do as individuals and voting citizens to define and preserve true "community character?"
Fair points. Zoning prevents us from becoming Manhattan Beach.
DeleteThe rest of it is much harder to deal with. I don't think most people would want RSF-style covenants and design review committees every time you want to remodel your house. Nor would most want racial quotas in the name of "diversity."
11:05
DeleteI supported Prop A-
If the zoning provides for the new tuscan style so be it. Just don't take away someone elses rigghts by giving somebody eles new rights
Define "gentrify" and "gentrification".
Deletehttp://www.pbs.org/pov/flagwars/special_gentrification.php
DeleteWow! Good thing nobody reads this thing. So much opinion not based in fact it is hard to believe. What? Have you all been taking classes from Marr and Ehlers?
DeleteWhat happens is that "traditional" housing can be usurped by "smart growth" or "sustainable growth." People can be pressured to move out of their homes if they can't adapt to the increasing traffic and issues created by infill "smart development" and "complete streets," etc. One could live in an older, smaller, more traditional home, and be surrounded by or adjacent to "McMansions" densely crammed into lots that previously had only one or two residences.
DeleteNot every street is suitable to having lanes eliminated, for example. Streets that are categorized, according to our General Plan as Major Arterials and part of a Specific Plan's circulation element, cannot simply subtract lanes for motorists, and add lanes for bicyclists, for example, without going through a legal process of perfecting a Coastal Development Permit.
Some regulation is necessary. Right now we are being under-served and over regulated. We are being wrongly regulated when existing regulations are being misinterpreted by staff's exercising incorrect unfettered discretion.
I would like to be more affordable housing on the books. What happened to the City's plan to encourage an actual amnesty, to encourage pre-existing accessory dwelling unit owners to come forward? Why aren't all single family residences considered as offering potential affordable units, as one accessory dwelling unit is allowed by right in single family residential zones?
People are really concerned because we're hep to the marketing jive, the sloganeering, the obvious attempts at branding and rebranding to manipulate the perception of residents who do love our smaller beach town, who love our communities' laid back character.
I agree with WC. Building more will not result in more affordable housing in the long run. What actually happens when bonus density projects are built, pre-existing affordable housing is often eliminated, resulting in a net loss of affordability.
4:11 said "What actually happens when bonus density projects are built, pre-existing affordable housing is often eliminated, resulting in a net loss of affordability."
DeleteAbsolutely true. And absolutely misleading.
This line of reasoning suggests that the likely alternative to a density bonus project is leaving old properties the way they were. That's unlikely. Older single family detached homes are leveled and replaced every day on smaller parcels not eligible for Density Bonus, so developers can still make money without DB. Without DB, developers would still buy greenhouses and larger properties and create affluent subdivisions without any affordable units. The result is the elimination of the affordable housing that was on the site, but with no affordable units created for he replacement subdivision.
The question isn't whether development will happen--it will. The question is whether the new development should include some more affordable units to preserve some demographic diversity in this town.
Well said. That's exactly what is happening on the parcel that I live on. Four old cottages that supported lower income residents that leased are being replaced with four giant two story million dollar condos that none of the current tennants could ever hope to buy. All of the old growth trees will also be eliminated. Changing community charactor for ever in the name of gentrification.
Delete9:49
DeleteReality is that under the state law the developer can get an incentive to put the affordable housing unit somewhere else in the state. That means a developer by law could put the lone affordable unit in say Chula Vista and put the stack and pack units in Encinitas.
Also, developers can pay an in-liue fee and buy out of the need to build the affordable unit- giving the money to Gus Vina, Teresa Barth and Kristin Gaspar who can them immediately use the new money from the in liue fees to hire a consultant do do a survey so they can send out fliers saying residents are happy with the town.
Also the so called affordable unit does not always stay affordable- for instance the developer can rent it for 30 years and it then reverts back to market rate
Keep in mind also the stack and pack density put forth by Vina, Gaspar and Barth in teh GEneral Plan Update and the upcoming fraud called a Housign Element is market rate-
Fact Thrower
7:38 in Solana Beach the city council just approved a low income project with about 15 units on South Sierra one block from the beacj
ReplyDelete1. The government will get to decide who lives in these units.
2. How will government pick the winners who get to live at the beach?
3. What about the people who go to the goverment and apply to live at teh beach but are turned down by the government?
4. Who is on the government decision board that will decide who wins and who loses in the beach living lottery?
5. Did we elect the people who will decide who wins and who loses in teh beach living lottery?
6. If the introduction of low income families into the neighborhood results in lowering the livign standards for all, more crime, reduced property values, vandalism, graffit and blight- who will pay for the lost property values forced on existing residents.
See how it works- forced, government decides who wins- do you know someone inside government? I live at the beach becuase I earned it.
Don't forget the basics ... Re zoning for stack and pack makes profit for developers at the expense of the quality of life for existing residents and value of all other existing property owners.
ReplyDeleteThe southwest is currently overbuilt. Freeze the issuance of new water meters forever.
If your kids wants to live here tell them to make enough money to do so....
That's why I am not a neighbor of Rob Machado yet...
Government subsidies kills freedom of souls.
Hey how about the city of Solana Beach ?? Why those good folks are putting in a sidewalk on the north end of their 101 to make it safer for pedestrians. I let's see what COE is doing on north 101 in Leucadia..... That's right, not a damn thing.
ReplyDeleteSolana Beach makes it safe.
Encinitas keeps it a death trap.
Nice going CRAP lovers, your voice is heard, your crap is everywhere.
The City has installed and improved sidewalks on 101 in Leucadia.
DeleteThe City subsidizes Leucadia 101 Mainstreet Association in many ways, including a $30,000 per year subsidy, and now increasing the facade grant program, which isn't awarded according to financial need, to another $40K, annually. Tonight Leucadia 101 Mainstreet was given additional funding in the form of grants for utility box art.
You're wrong 10:38. Leucadia 101 has been the beneficiary of many city grants and subsidies, as well as an ongoing subsidy through getting one third of the revenues from vendors at Paul Ecke Central School Sunday Farmers' Markets, revenues from vendors at the Artwalk, and monies from other events, such as Taste of Leucadia.
Why don't you stop crying poor and spewing bitter, unrelenting insults at people who want to protect and preserve our community's charm?
Why don't you show more appreciation for the monies you are getting through the taxpayers? At the June 18 Council Meeting, tonight, the money alloted for the non-profit organization that provides free Yoga instruction to low income seniors was cut back, and the Mainstreet Associations and the Encinitas Preservation Association were given additional city subsidies, basically as payback for being Prop A opponents.
Sol Bch also has a lot of condos right beside the ocean, and very few ped areas to get to ocean.
ReplyDelete12:14 few ped crossings?
ReplyDeleteThey have one at Robert's. another in front of surf ride, another one at Lomas another one near CVS and another one before you get into del mar
Density has to stop. Encinitas doesn't have the water or infrastructure for all of these people.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to see this city turn into the equivalent of a Japanese tube hotel.
Then put pressure on the council to direct Vina to direct Murphy to stop creating loophole after loophole in our code. Density bonus law aside, we roll out the red carpet to developers like no other city. Write council (not Vina, not Murphy) and tell them what you think and encourage others to do the same.
Deletevote out all incumbents. This group is lame. I am voting for all new fresh blood. First priority needs to be to fire Vina. Barth loved the strokes from little napoleon. One of her biggest downfalls. She was smart not to run… she would have been shamed just like Jerome.
DeleteBarth "would" have been shamed - you mean by not getting reelected? She has proven herself both ineffective and a cop-out to the supporters who thought she represented a chance for significant change. She showed her true colors once $tock$ got the boot - she had nothing to offer.
DeleteFunny Kristin GasparS step farther is a developer and also her dear friend David Meyer a developer tells everyone he help writeensue density bonus law.OUR NEW MAYOR has a lot of baggage.
ReplyDelete2:36 You still cannot spell, nor form a complete idea. Hopefully your green card expires soon, of course in reality you probably teach at a local college.
Delete4:02
DeleteInteresting you do not argue facts-
Fact- Gaspar is aligned with Dave Meryes who wrote density bonus laws to stick it to residents while increasing his own profits.
Fact- Gasoar voted to waste $66,000 of taxpayer money on the True North Survey to benefit herself rather than fund sewer repairs.
Fact- Gaspar's husband Paul- along with Dave Meyers- used teh survey results taxpayers paid for and Gaspar approved as political propaganda to promote Gaspar.
When you have some facts please come back around. Name calling is a simpleton's way to distract from the truth
Fact Thrower
Dave Meyers - the same guy who harassed Houlihan after he didn't get some sort of lucrative consulting job. Remember the clown act ? Still lining his pocket by selling out to the highest bidder.
Delete4:02 Better wake up and start paying attention to what is going on in this city, rather than how some one didn't spell something correctly. What a twat!
ReplyDeleteI agree. 4:02 should take the handle twat head.
DeleteIs a "complete neighborhood" the same thing as an electronic prison? The "vibrancy" comes from your ankle bracelets when you step over the perimeters. "Overcrowding density bonuses" sounds like a great idea, where can I sign up? This Smart Overgrowth thing sounds super!
ReplyDelete"Prison Planet"
DeleteIsn't that the Alex Jones www.infowars.com website?
He talks about UN Agenda 21-
He also talked about FEMA preparing camps a couple of years ago-
Interesting- now FEMA is using those camps to house hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who are invading our borders
see how it works?
here we go again. I thought they "got" prop A.
ReplyDeleteChopped down 65 trees without city permission to add 18 more parking spaces??
ReplyDeletehttps://thecoastnews.com/2014/06/parking-lot-proposal-returns-to-commission/
Smart growth pretended to stop sprawl. Complete neighborhoods doesn't repeat that lie. Other close minded utopian visions continue.
ReplyDeleteNews out today that an Executive of GreenPeace, the organization that is looking to lecture the world on environmental stewardship including finding ways to limit airline emissions, is actually commuting by plane to work twice a month-
ReplyDeleteThis is like Al Gore making hundreds of millions off ficitious and made up cap and trade credits to prevent so called global warming- ah, will call it climate change now because facts are the earth is actually cooling- and then Al hops in his private jet and his 8 cylinder limo and drives off expecting the rest of us to live in stack and pack micro units and ride chinese peasant like bikes to and from the hihg density rail transit villages
I have said it before-
Kranz Shaffer and barth all lecture residents on the environment while getting their car allowances- hypocrytes