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Dead, but not quite dead enough |
Here is how one of relevant introductory passages reads. Written in a special kind of language that only a few ever learn to speak. Which is probably the point. It's the process and you're not really supposed to know too much about it.
ADOPTION OF 2008-2014 HOUSING ELEMENT, INCLUDING GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT (GPA 13-01 A, B, AND C), MUNICIPAL CODE TEXT AMENDMENT (MCTA 13-01) AND ZONE CHANGE NO. 13-01: The Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing to consider a General Plan Amendment (GPA 13-01A) to adopt the 2008-2014 Housing Element, which is a State mandated General Plan element. The Housing Element must be updated pursuant to California Government Code Section 65588 for the 2008-2014 planning period. Implementation of the new Housing Element requires two additional GPAs (13-01B) to adopt a new Land Use Category RH1 (Residential High Density, up to 20 dwelling units/acre), and GPA 13-01C to change the Land Use designation of property located at 271-293 Mariposa Avenue from RH (Residential Medium/High Density, up to 13 dwelling units/acre) to RH1 (Residential High Density, up to 20 dwelling units/acre). The final aspect of the project includes a Municipal Code Text Amendment (MCTA 13-01) to add a new zoning category R-3H (Multiple Family Residential High) and a Zone Change (ZC 13-01) to rezone 271-293 Mariposa Avenue from R-3 to R-3H.
What this means is that our General Plan, which was supposed to be written by the people here with the purpose of preserving a Sierra Madre that is a reflection of how they want things to be, has now been peddled off as part of a much larger package to the big money developer interests that control much of the decision making in California.
Our elected state officials have become little more than an organ that turns perfectly good things like our town and tax money into absolutely nothing at all. At least for us. Think of them as being a bit like an intestine. Complete with both a Holden and Liu function. Just make certain you don't stand too close.
If you wish to go to the document itself you may do so by clicking here. It is called "Adoption of the 2008 - 2014 Housing Element Including General Plan Amendments, Municipal Code Text Amendment, and Zone Change. As written by none other than Karen Warner herself, a consultant that we pay $50,000 a pop for documents that can only assist in ruining our town.
The real process (so to speak) described in Karen's latest gold-plated opus is all about turning our town into something the state legislature of our one party state believes is agreeable to the development industry folks who bribe them to the tune of millions of dollars. And what was paid for is described in this consultant report. It isn't anything that the people of Sierra Madre want, but it is what Sacramento wants. People who only see us as being some small thing to sell off to the highest bidder so that they will have plenty of the re-election campaign cash necessary to tell us how wonderful they are.
Here are three golden moments that I pulled out of this document. Maybe you can find some special ones as well. There are really so many, and each and everyone of them exactly what the people of Sierra Madre said they did not want during the General Plan outreach meetings. But Sacramento doesn't care about that. And, for that matter, neither does 60% of our City Council.
1. pg v-29 Homeless Services Strategy (Inviting the SGV's derelict and addicted populations to live on East Montecito and mingle with our children downtown.)
The San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (SGVCOG) has undertaken a consensus building process involving the 19 valley cities, the County, and community and faith-based organizations to develop a regional Homeless Services Strategy. The Strategy, adopted by the SGVCOG Board in 2009, provides an intervention plan to address unmet housing and service needs to be implemented over a one to five year period. San Gabriel Valley communities were divided into four cluster groups, each developing its own subregional priorities, programs and production targets. Sierra Madre participated in the Strategy development, and as part of Cluster Group One, has defined the following five-year priorities:
• First Priority - Permanent Supportive Housing. Focus on creating mixed population affordable housing developments with set-asides of supportive housing for formerly homeless tenants, with a goal of developing 47 units. Also utilize scattered site rent-subsidized units leased in the private rental market, with a goal of 100 units.
• Second Priority – Transitional Housing. Increase the number of transitional housing beds for single individuals by 40 to 60. Provide scattered site, master leased short term housing for 125 families.
2008-2014 HOUSING ELEMENT V-32 HOUSING PLAN
• Third Priority – Emergency Shelter. Increase the number of emergency shelter beds for single individuals by 60 to 90.Identify emergency shelters as a by right in the M-1 zone. The City will be developing standards for homeless shelters on East Montecito.
(Mod: Please note that when the above drug addict housing demand was pushed through the SGVCOG, Joe Mosca was our representative there. He never mentioned it to us once. Just like he never told us about his support for taking away our Board of Education vote.)
2. pg v-29 General Plan Update On "Sustainability" (Read: Undoing Measure V):
Transitional and supportive housing may take the form of a multi-family structure, or single-family home. Thus, if transitional or supportive housing is configured as multi-family, it would be regulated as such, whereas if it is configured as a single-family structure, it would be subject to single-family regulations.
Sierra Madre has initiated a comprehensive update to its General Plan, and in compliance with SB 375 will be addressing sustainability on a broader land use and transportation basis. In conjunction with creation of the new R-3H zone under the Housing Element rezone Program #8, a corresponding Residential High Density General Plan land use category will be established to accommodate 20 unit/acre densities. The General Plan Steering Committee and City decision-makers will evaluate additional suitable locations for designation as Residential High Density, focusing on sites within close walking distance to transit stops and Sierra Madre’s commercial area, such as the Mariposa sites currently being rezoned R-3H. In addition to individual sites, the General Plan will evaluate the suitability of designating larger blocks located adjacent to the downtown for Residential High Density. Providing expanded locations for higher density housing will help to mitigate the limitations Measure V3 places on development within the downtown core.
2008-2014 Objective: Mitigate the impacts of Measure V on creation of higher density and affordable housing through establishment of a new Residential High Density land use category in conjunction with Housing Element adoption (April 2013).
(Mod: I sincerely doubt that the General Plan Committee had anything to do with this nonsense. Measure V is the standard the people of Sierra Madre voted for when it was passed in 2007. Apparently the vote doesn't count here any more, be it the UUT, Board of Education, Prop 218 Water Ballots, or who gets to be Mayor Pro Tem.)
3. Pg. v-23 Affordable Housing Development Assistance (Using out of town poor to justify stack and pack housing here while also using our tax money to build it.)
Affordable Housing Development Assistance: The City and the Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency can play an important role in the provision of quality, affordable housing through land assembly and write-downs and regulatory incentives (density bonus and other development incentives). By utilizing various tools to facilitate infill development, the City can help to address the housing needs of its extremely low, very low, low and moderate income households.
One of the most significant constraints to providing housing affordable to Sierra Madre’s more modest income residents and workforce is the lack of available land for development. As a means of addressing this issue, the City’s former Redevelopment Agency has in the past acquired sites utilizing the Agency’s 20 percent housing set-aside fund and written down the cost to facilitate the development of affordable housing. For the Sierra Vista Senior Housing Project, the Redevelopment Agency assembled four separate parcels at a cost of over $1.4 million for conveyance to a non-profit developer via a ground lease.
The Successor Agency maintains ownership of the .34 acre property at 186 W. Highland, originally purchased with Redevelopment Housing Funds. Prior to the State-wide dissolution of Redevelopment, the Sierra Madre Community Redevelopment Agency entered into an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement with Heritage Housing Partners (HHP), a local non-profit housing developer, for development of the Highland Avenue site. In the current post-Redevelopment setting, the City and its Successor Agency are re-initiating discussions with HHP for development of the site with three to four units of workforce housing affordable to moderate income households.
(Mod: Why the taxpayers of Sierra Madre are required to pay for the cost of housing people who never saw the need to carry their own load is beyond me. Nobody ever asked to pay my mortgage. Has anyone ever asked to pay yours?)
There you go, state dictated and locally enabled additions to our General Plan that are sure to horrify the residents of Sierra Madre while at the same time bringing down the value of our homes, endangering our children, and as a whole undoing just about everything that people love about Sierra Madre.
What a lovely thing our pliable elected state officials have brought to us. And how hard some of our local folks have worked to make it all happen here as well. Think about it, your tax dollars are being used for things that you wouldn't ever want in your community. How did that ever happen?
Maybe those people you voted for really weren't all that civil after all?
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