Update #12: Meeting with City Officials
Our group has been working diligently to collect information about the project which we hope will help us fight it. We have a land use attorney, a senior wetland ecologist, individuals in the construction industry, and a real estate agent, along with many others on our team, looking through land titles, environmental concerns, and building issues. Most are volunteering their time for the cause. Our list of members is growing as people start to learn how damaging these state laws are to neighborhoods.
Silver Spur Project
Above is our graphic artists’ rendition of what the proposed Silver Spur Canyon project. The street in the foreground is Silver Spur Road, with the north end of the canyon to the right. SIlver Spur canyon is between Silver Spur Road and Birchfield, and the buildings sit right down in the canyon. The developer now has six months to submit a detailed plan for the units; presumably once submitted, the permitting process will begin. Under the new laws, there are very few things that can stop such a project, but there are some, and we plan to fight.
Meeting!
We will be having an open house on Saturday, February 18 at 2 PM, at 5325 Ironwood St., which is the one house down in the canyon, on the side opposite the development. You can get there down the alleyway next to 5321 Ironwood. A representative of state Senator Ben Allen is scheduled to be there. We will be inviting City Council members as well. Come see what the canyon looks like, and have an opportunity to ask questions about the project. If you can, please RSVP to Dave and Anita Matharu: damat112@gmail.com Walk-ins are welcome, so no worries if you decide at the last minute to come. We want everybody there.
Meeting with City Officials
The leadership group of Neighborhood Voices of Silver Spur met with the RPV City Manager and the Director of Community Development for further information about the project. For legal reasons, city officials can’t show favoritism to either side in a contested project, but they did volunteer that they would prefer to have projects like this built in places that they indicated on RPV’s Housing Element. The canyon is not on the Housing Element. They did report that the city of RPV has joined other cities in litigation against the State of California over these housing laws.
Housing Element
RPV submitted its Housing Element to the State Department of Housing and Community Development at the end of January. The state has 60 days to review it. Until the state approves our Housing Element, we remain vulnerable to Builder’s Remedy projects, Builder’s Remedy laws allow developers to build whatever they want wherever they want; Silver Spur Canyon is one such project. In such cases the state strips the city’s (and local citizens’) ability to enforce any local zoning or other restrictions on building, and silence’s your voice as a community member. Developers can buy single family homes, tear them down, and put up apartment complexes pretty much anywhere they want (unbelievable but true). Silver Spur Canyon was formerly zoned for only two single-family homes and now we are looking at 482 condos. The entire neighborhood currently has only about 250 homes!
Deep Valley Project
Some of you may be aware that a 400 unit apartment complex has been proposed for Deep Valley Road where the previous landslide was (see above). This is in the city of Rolling Hills Estates, which has its Housing Element approved, so this proposal is under a different law called the “Bonus Density” law. That law basically says as long as a developer puts in enough affordable housing, they can exceed the city’s restrictions on density and height, but otherwise are generally required to follow local requirements. We will keep an eye on that project as much as we can as well. These are the laws that Sacramento has been quietly passing unbeknownst to most of us, and appear very profitable for developers.
Donors
We want to thank our donors to date. Without your help, we couldn’t afford the land use attorney who’s working with us. (If I missed anybody, please respond back to me; we want to give you credit!) If you don’t like the direction that the state is taking with its new laws on density, please consider donating to our fight. Any amount helps. (See link below). Donations are tax deductible.
Pritam
Matharu
Clara
Nilles
Dave
Matharu
Tiffany
Matharu
Greg & Christine
Miguel /Quinn
James
Han
Kathy
Brugger
Debra
Buxton
Jason
Foster
Kitty
Callahan
Mike
Peterson
Brent
Liu
Cathy
Rucker
Joan
Davidson
Rob
Scow
Karen
Murcia
Elizabeth
Geisel
Susan
Kettel
Jamie
Beavers
Timothy
Haney
Donate to our GoFundMe effort!
Want to help?
If you have any skills that might be useful to us, or even if you just have time and want to help, we have many tasks that we could use some assistance with. You can reply to this email with your name and contact information.
Thank You!
