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Health & Fitness

Agenda for Adam Nick's "Town Meeting" Saturday

Councilman Adam Nick has been gracious enough to grant our citizens our first “town meeting”, Saturday morning at 9 am at Mustard’s Café in The Portola Auto Center. The topic is the Brookfield project, recently approved at the last City Council meeting. Click here for more info.

Since Councilman Nick is accustomed to working from an agenda, and since the topic is emotionally charged for many people, I thought I’d facilitate by providing an agenda for the meeting.

Here are the concerns expressed by the citizens of Lake Forest over the past several months, along with the counter-claims.

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TANDEM PARKING

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Concerns

1.    By code, tandem parking is not allowed in the City. For a project to be approved the developers  must apply to the Planning Commission and their project has to be approved to allow an exception to be made. That exception must be based on various factors laid out in the code. The Planning Commission and the staff did not find any reason for an exemption to be granted. Therefore, tandem parking should not be allowed. From an even wider perspective, if tandem parking is allowed in this case, all future projects will ask for tandem parking. Even if tandem parking will not create problems in this case, it will in future cases. The flood gates should not be opened.

a.    Some people claim that tandem parking is not really the problem people say it is, and should not be dis-allowed. They claim the Code is out-dated and should be revised, so this part of the Code should be ignored.

2.    Tandem parking, whether allowed or not, does not create the 1:1 parking spaces which Brookfield relies upon to meet their parking requirements. Therefore, the project lacks adequate parking spaces. This will results in unhappy residents and overflow parking into surrounding areas.

Counter-arguments

1.    Tandem parking isn’t a problem here because there are no surrounding neighborhoods to overflow into except for the commercial areas.

a.    To date the commercial owners have not signed an agreement to allow overflow parking.

2.    Tandem parking will allow Brookfield to build more units, thus lowering the unit price and making it easier for seniors and young families to move into the project

a.    But opponents point out the project is not suitable for seniors (upstairs units) or young families (very few amenities for children, project is in a high traffic, dangerous part of the city).


IMPACT ON SCHOOLS AND KIDS

Concerns

1.    Foothill Elementary is already too crowded and they are already 4,000+ new homes being built in the area. This will flood the school and require many children to be driven to schools in other parts of the city. This will create economic problems, traffic problems, etc.

a.    Proponents of the project claim that the project has no control over the schools. Even the City Council has no control over the schools.

2.    The project doesn’t really have many amenities for kids, even though it is touted as being designed for people with young families. This means kids will be tempted to cross the very busy streets surrounding the project, creating dangerous situations.

Counter arguments

 1.    Brookfield is giving lots of $$$ to the SVUSD for the privilege of building their project. This money can be used to improve the schools.


IMPACT ON TRAFFIC AND RESOURCES

Concerns

1.    There is already too many traffic problems in the city and we are adding 4,000 more homes. We don’t need another 150-200 more homes and the extra traffic they will create.

a.    Brookfield’s traffic study says that while traffic in this area will increase by nearly 45%, there will be “no impact” on the 11 intersections surrounding this project.

                                          i.    However, Brookfield did not look at the impact on the rest of the City, and a recent lawsuit in Trabuco Canyon says that limited traffic studies are not sufficient to meet California standards.

2.    Access to public libraries, the post office, and other resources is already strained and will be breached when 4,000+ more homes are added to the city. We don’t need 150-200 more.

a.    There are no studies of this impact. In any event, these areas will have to be handled as a result of the 4,000+ new homes, so adding another 150-200 is no big deal.


“BEST USE”

Claim

1.    The best use of this property has not been determined. Staff recommended that Brookfield et al fund a study to determine if this is the best use, but Brookfield refused to do the study. Therefore we don’t know what the best use is. There is a thriving auto dealer operating there now, providing jobs and sales tax revenue for the City. They will be forced to close.

a.    This area has been vacant for some time. If there were a better use, the area would have been more productive.

Counter-argument

1.    Looking at the future, cities don’t need more commercial space, they need more residential space as more and more people work from home. We need more homes, not more retail, commercial, or industrial space.

a.    It’s difficult to predict future trends. Yahoo just announced people will no longer be allowed to work from home.

b.    With 4,000+ more new homes being built in this area, there will be a need for more commercial, retail, and industrial space even if this need wasn’t there in the past.

MONEY TO THE CITY

1.    Brookfield will be paying millions of dollars to the City to build this project. That money will help defray the costs of the Sports Park and other capital improvement projects.

a.    By reducing the tandem parking and building more amenities for families, the Brookfield project will still owe the City millions of dollars and the project will be much improved. The loss of income from 2 or 3 fewer incomes in minimal, but the improvement to the quality of life of the residents is more valuable.


PROPRIETY

I saved the best for last, because this issue is the one that is most commented on and for which there seems to be the most emotion.

1.    Brookfield spent $100,000 influencing our elections, and then the 3 people whom they helped put in office, vote to give them special exemptions not given to other developers. This makes the council look like common criminals accepting bribes.

a.    Everything that Brookfield did was within the law. Everything that the Council members did was within the law, even if it doesn’t look good.

2.    Council members did not disclose their acceptance of Brookfield et al money, which makes it look like they are hiding the fact. If they honestly believed they were doing no wrong, they should have disclosed the fact and then given their reasons.

a.    There is no legal requirement for Council members to disclose campaign contributions when they vote. Campaign contributions are listed in their 460 forms and people can check if they want to.

3.    The City has a policy and procedure for hand ling development, and under normal circumstances, Brookfield should have been required to work with staff and the Planning Commission until they came up with a plan that everyone agreed upon. By refusing to do this, and by circumventing the authority of the Planning Commission, the City dismisses the Planning Commission and grants dispensation to Brookfield without any rationale.

a.    The City council can do whatever it pleases. They are making an exception in this case, but they don’t have to make an exception in any other case.

I hope this is useful for everyone.

See you tomorrow.

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