Even More Homes Being Squeezed Into City

IT’S NOT OVER UNTIL THE FAT MAN EXPLODES

If you’re familiar with the hilarious 1983 Monty Python film “The Meaning of Life”, you’ll remember the scene near the end of the film where a morbidly obese elderly man is continually prompted by the unflappable maître d’ to consume enormous amounts of food and spirits, and then cajoled to finish with a thin after-dinner mint. The fat man protests that he can fit no more but the maître d’ insists and insists – after all, it’s only one thin mint and the rotund customer has already consumed wheelbarrows worth of food. The fat man relents, swallows the thin mint, and explodes, showering the posh restaurant with human entrails, vomit, and partially digested food. Lesson – when you’re full, even one thin mint can be too much.

That’s the scene that comes to my mind when I look at the Planning Commission (PC) agenda for this Thursday night (March 27) where, once more, developers are trying to squeeze in one last thin plot of homes. We have already been forced to swallow more than 4,500 new homes, fed by developers who simultaneously fed the campaign committee coffers of City Council members Voigts and Robinson. Last year the combination of too many homes, too few schools, and corruption fueled more than 100 people to take to the streets in an attempt to “Save Lake Forest” by collecting more than 4,000 signatures from registered voters. It should be clear to anyone who is not blinded by greed, that the residents of Lake Forest do not want any more new homes until we’ve had the chance to digest the 4,500+ new homes already on the menu.

WHY WE DON’T WANT MORE NEW HOMES

Here are some of the reasons for not wanting any more new homes –

• Traffic is already bad and there are no real plans to make it significantly better given the addition of 4,500+ new homes which equates to more than 35,000 additional vehicles trips around the City each day.

SHOULD WE REMOVE EVEN MORE COMMERCIAL SPACE?

Yet despite all this, another plan to add more homes is being considered. This new site is adjacent to the new sports park, on 30 acres bordering Rancho Pkwy, Portola Pkwy, and the 241. The area is currently zoned commercial, so the PC and the Council will have to approve a zoning change in order to allow Baker Ranch to build 250 more residential units. Bear in mind, the City Council recently approved removing more than 80 acres of commercial space when they approved the re-zoning of the Brookfield and Trumark projects, after Brookfield and Trumark spent nearly $100,000 getting Voigts, Robinson, and Nick elected. For those of you with short memories, it was the 3 votes from Voigts, Robinson, and Nick that allowed Brookfield and Trumark to proceed, over the objections of the City staff, the PC, the residents, and the remaining two City Council members.

One of the key issues at that time was the staff’s request for a marketing study to show the commercial potential of the area given the new economic conditions, as well as the best uses of the area when residential was compared to commercial. The developers refused to have the study done, and the Council members who benefited from the developers largesse in funding their election campaigns voted to give the developers what they asked for - or in this case, gave them sanction for what they refused to do.

HOW DO WE SOLVE THE PROBLEMS?

Even if such a study were done in this case, and even if it demonstrated that the future for commercial space in this area was limited (despite the addition of 4,500 new homes with 10,000 new consumers), several stumbling blocks still remain. The two major stumbling blocks are traffic and schools. The City will tell you that the $12,000,000 they are about to spend will solve the traffic problems. Can they be believed? Every two or three years they’ve been telling us that we had synchronized traffic lights, only to learn recently that we weren’t even half way there yet. They also tell us how “safe” we are when we are, in fact, the “murder capital of south Orange County” and crimes like murder and forcible rape are on the rise. Forgive me if I don’t believe their comments about solving the traffic problems.

The school issue is also a major one. Parents of Foothill Ranch and Portola tell me that their classes are already overcrowded, so how will the 6,000+ new students coming with the 4,500+ new homes be adequately served when it appears we aren’t doing a good job with what we have right now?

THEY ARE US

Don’t think that if you live in the older parts of Lake Forest you will be exempt. The new homes that are being built in Foothill Ranch will have people who drive the freeways, which means they will be driving through the rest of Lake Forest. They will have kids who go to the local schools, bumping the kids who are in those schools right now into schools in the rest of Lake Forest, forcing those parents to drive every day to drop off and pick up those same kids. These new homes will require trash pickup, postal delivery, pizza, and everything else that will require cars and trucks driving through the older parts of Lake Forest to service these new homes. The homes being built in Foothill Ranch and Portola impact all of us.

NEXT STEP

You’ll get a chance to see what they are planning and to comment at this week’s PC meeting on Thursday night. Meanwhile if you’re concerned with the future of our City, post this article to your Facebook page and e-mail it to your friends. The icons to do this are at the top of the page.