The Planning Commission Part 2 - Beneath the Surface

Last time we looked at the circus atmosphere in which the Planning Commission (PC) rubber stamped a developer’s request to (a) change the General Plan and (b) evict a thriving Lake Forest based business. Of particular concern, we noted that at every step in this phase, the PC refused to avail themself of, or ask for, or depend upon, any real planning, which is of course, seemingly contradictory for a commission that has “planning” in its name. Click here for that sad story, but just to re-cap, here are the major planning efforts which were ignored in the frantic PC’s rush to approve the developer’s project –

a.  We don’t know what the best use of the land is because the PC refused to compel the developer to do an up to date study of the commercial viability of the area now that 4,000+ new homes are being added and now that the economy is on the rise.

b.  We don’t know what the impact will be on the city as a whole with regards to traffic and use of public resources (libraries, post office)  of the 4,000+ new homes already approved, so adding any more new homes without this information is counterproductive and downright foolish.

c.  We don’t know what the impact on the present value of homes in the City will be when we add so many more homes.

POLITICS AND PLANNING

Several months ago we talked about the political decision-making that went into the appointment of the “new guys” on the PC. When the Council’s “new regime” took over in December, with Scott Voigts as the Mayor, one of their first acts, apart from granting favors to the people who bankrolled their election campaigns, was to clean house and remove the existing commissioners from Planning as well as Parks and Recreation. It’s not as if these people had been doing a poor job, and it was shocking to see all 4 heads lobbed off simultaneously and replaced with relative newcomers to City activities. I don’t want to argue against “change” or “new blood”, both of which I have endorsed for most of my life, but there can be “too much of a good thing”, so it was with trepidation that I and many others viewed the coup d’état aka “out with the old, in with the new”.

NEW BLOOD

As things would have it, the infusion of new blood into the Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC) doesn’t seem to have blunted their ability to continue to move forward, nor did it introduce any interpersonal dynamics than threaten to weaken the PRC or the City. Indeed, at the last meeting of the PRC, it would have been difficult to guess who the new members were and who had been there for years.

Life at the PC, on the other hand, is far different. There is clear tension between the new guys and their experienced colleagues, and nary a meeting goes by when one of our longer standing commissioners hasn’t counselled his newer colleague about the reality of how things actually happen. Even more critical, our senior members have to constantly remind the new guys that the PC serves the people of Lake Forest, not the developers or the business owners who come before them. And while it is perfectly appropriate to be as “business friendly” as possible, the task of the PC is to insure that the quality of life for people in the City is not negatively impacted by new developments. “Yes” everyone is for progress, but not “at any cost”. The continued expression of this over-riding concern by the more experienced commissioners shows that beneath the surface there are deep philosophical disagreements at play.

Commissioners Brower and Hamilton (aka “the new guys”) have shown themselves to be sincere, enthusiastic and hard-working, but IMO these qualities alone do not a good commissioner make. With the enthusiasm of the young they are too quick to make the deal and too anxious to accept the assurance of developers and business owners that they will follow through with their good intentions. The more seasoned commissioners, having been burned more than once by an unfulfilled promise, realize that the best deal and the best performance you will get is at the beginning and subject to regulation, and that wishes and promises are as ephemeral as wisps of wind when you come to collect.

MUDDLED THINKING AS A WAY OF LIFE

A few weeks ago, in an article “Muddled Thinking = Poor Planning“ I pointed to a decision from the PC which made no sense at all, from any perspective. They voted to change the General Plan with no evidence that it should be changed, and almost simultaneously denied the proposal that would justify, at least partially, changing the plan. The new guys, of course, made the difference, as they did at a more recent meeting when they voted to throw out a Lake Forest business and build homes in an industrial area. “Let the market decide” can be heard at almost every meeting, suggesting that it doesn’t matter what kind of project gets approved, the risk is on the developer. But poorly designed projects impact the community as well as the developer, a concept which the new guys have yet to embrace.

All the preceding is prelude to the appointment of Tim Hughes’ replacement. Many people have not been happy with the decisions coming out of the PC lately, including Councilman Adam Nick who recently appealed their decision to build a monstrously large truck depot for U-Haul (click here) in the area currently occupied by a Nursery.

Indeed the PC was over-turned twice in the past few weeks by the Council. Click here for more details.

The appeals and over-turning of the PC’s decisions, now 3 for 3 in as many Council meetings, are moving forward at an unprecedented pace, indicating that whatever the Voigts’ crowd purposes were for stacking the deck with the new guys, it doesn’t seem to be working smoothly. Even former Chairman of the PC, Tim Hughes, in an interview in The Patch, bemoaned the problems created by the new guys. Here’s a sample of his remarks -

"I can tell you on a number of occasions, Brower and Hamilton have demonstrated they didn't know the material and repeatedly asked questions that were stated in the package we had been given."

"The new commissioners ... are not interested in open dialogue but would rather take the position they're not going to mess with business. Their attitude is (developers and owners) put all this work into it, what right do they have to not support it? My response is why do we need a planning commission? ... That's a stance that represents the businesses and not the residents; we've seen from surveys that less than 3 percent of businesses are owned by residents of the community."

For the full interview, click here.

IS STACKING THE DECK THE BEST STRATEGY?

Stacking the deck with another pro-business, free enterprise advocate who puts the interests of the owner/developers on a par with the interests of the City will only make a bad situation even worse. The PC needs an experienced counselor to replace the experienced counselor they are losing, and that means appointing either Dave Carter or Terry Anderson to the post they were dismissed from only a few short months ago, or finding someone with a similar degree of maturity and experience.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the process more intensely.