They Paved Paradise

A particularly divisive issue in my community is the planned overdevelopment of some properties. One is in my neighborhood and is a large empty restaurant on a big parking lot. For as long as I remember, no restaurant has been successful in this location. When it was a Chevy’s restaurant in the mid 1990s, it was a fun place to go with the kids. They could watch tortillas being made and play with a lump of tortilla dough. But there are many restaurants with tastier Mexican food. It is on the main highway, but it backs up to a residential neighborhood. Somehow, the developer got the city to approve plans for mixed use retail shops with a hotel above that pushed the height limit. They had apparently convinced the city that everyone staying there would use Uber or Lyft so they requested a variance to have less dedicated parking. When I viewed the plans and saw that the number of rooms was a lot more than the number of parking spots, I joined a group opposed to the project. They were also planning to have live amplified music on the roof top! Yes, the noise and the extra vehicles would end up in my neighborhood. The other property developers are hoping to build on is a triangle of land next to the refinery. They want to call some of it low income housing to avoid coastal commission regulations. It, too, does not have enough dedicated parking. I would like to see it all as affordable housing, but apparently that won’t make enough profit. Our city has no long term vision for a sustainable future than encourages us away from our cars. The city employees can’t afford to live here and city council members come with their own agendas. During the last election, one candidate kept railing about a high school English teacher who included Gender Queer on the list of books approved (but not required) for classroom reading assignments.

— KathyV