Zombies Rise in the La Mesa Meadows!

Around dusk, in the southwestern quadrant of La Mesa, I went out on a Sunday night looking into what I heard were the only swamps in our fair town.  I was hunting zombies.  After all, only last night I saw the final chapter of Harry Potter and I was up for an adventure.

Well, it is mid-July in what wikipedia tells me is a Semi-arid Steppe climate.  Maybe swamps is a bit of a stretch.  There were some kids having what seemed to be an innocuous party.  There was some standing water in a drainage ditch with green trees and prodigious palms directly adjacent, but mostly dry scrub under the blanket of traffic noise from the 125 freeway.  That's about all I could tell from outside the perimeter fence.   Not so much the gators and mosquitoes that one might hope for if one was looking for a hidden zombie den.  But a zombie I did find.

Let’s go back a month ago.  Our industrious city council held a hearing to decide whether to approve revisions to a previously approved site development plan.  Should we allow Reynolds Communities to go ahead with a plan, approved before our current economic crisis, to build a 36 lot sub-division on 11 acres of open space under the 125 freeway near Highfield Avenue and Garfield Street?

Only the developer, Reynolds communities, wanted the cost saving revision of skipping out on a promised sound wall to alleviate noise from the 125 freeway.  The plan calls for turning 11 acres of open space into a 36 lot sub-division.

This meeting was attended by concerned citizens, the developer, and a representative from Cal-Trans.  Law required that the city council members who had taken campaign contributions from the developer should make that known.

The mayor and three of the four council members had been recipients. (The lone exception was Mark Arapostathis).  It was at times heated, with some accusations leveled.  Questions of integrity and trust were raised.  Everyone involved was polite and respectful.  Generally it was a model of what civic engagement in a democracy is all about.  People arguing their case in a public forum makes me feel all patriotic and proud.  This was a shining example of that.

There was expressed by what seemed to me to be unanimous agreement of the council and city manager that this was a project that should be approved because it was good for the city.  By good for the city, I think they mean that it would be good for the ever-strained coffers of the city finances to have the property taxes of 36 post-proposition 13 housing units added to the tax rolls. 

Council members vouched for Mr. Reynolds as an upstanding citizen who could be trusted do what is right.  After all, he owned the property. Who are we to deny him his right to profit from such behavior?

What jumped out at me about how this is wrong was never brought up in the hearing.  After all, it was only about whether to allow the plan to go on without the wall.  What got my goat was that this project is not good for the future citizens of La Mesa.  Not good for those kids interloping in the field.  We need development.  We need more housing.  There will be a million more people in San Diego County by 2050 according to projections by SANDAG.  Many more people will be moving to La Mesa.  What we need is affordable, sustainable housing.  Housing centered around transit centers.  Housing that is energy efficient in bold ways.  Peak oil is now.  When the Wall Street speculators get their hands on a market of oil that is declining in production and increasing in demand, we are in for a world of hurt.  We need to account for that in our decisions.

Developers have located the last remaining remnants of the precious little open space left here.  They have laid claim, and in some cases already gotten approval for their projects.  That these projects can be put into mothballs when it is expedient and brought out as zombies when times have changed is a fundamental problem.  More than ever, times change faster and faster.  We need to give our elected representatives the ability to adapt to these changes as best they can.   We need to change the rules.  We need a limit on how long a city approval is good for.  What seemed like a good idea in the eighties might not be such a good idea now.  How about five years?  Shouldn’t that be enough time to start a project or go to the planning commission for another round in the approval process?  I think that all the projects currently on hold should be reviewed before allowing them to continue. Soon, the economy will improve and we will see more plans rise up from the dead.  How many more are there out there?

At the next city council meeting (Tuesday 7/26), there will be another hearing on whether or not to approve this now that more facts have been gathered.  Pretty ho-hum stuff to most citizens, unless you are intimately involved, and have this project in your neighborhood.  Luckily we have a process by which your voice can be heard.  Come down and join the process if you can.  These are important issues.  Let the council know how you feel.

We know that the way we have developed our cities leads to obesity and physical inactivity.  We know that we need to address the reduction of greenhouse gasses and foster sustainable living.  We need to center future development on transit hubs within mini-villages.  This can be addressed through careful and deliberate city planning.

I believe that it is the responsibility of our mayor and city council to cultivate a vision for urban design which understands these challenges and motivates our populace to accept the changes necessary to secure our future.

There is lots of talk from the mayor and council members about the need to address climate change.  When I see the direction of our city, it feels like nothing but talk.  When actual planning decisions come up, they defer to the past and go back to wishing on the future of the 1950’s and suburban sprawl.  We are facing extraordinary challenges.  Change takes time; however, time is in short supply right now.

La Mesa is an aging community.  However, we are ideally situated to make the most of our transit accessible proximity to a major city while keeping our small town experience viable.  If we can attract the younger generations here with a highly livable, walkable, bikable and sustainable environment, we will secure the future.

I don’t know how many zombie projects are sitting around ready to rise up and suck the life out our children’s future.  I would like to think we can put an end to it here and now.